Educating pulp and paper engineers for the global forest industry

As the business of the Finnish forest industry companies expands increasingly over the borders of our country, a newly graduated engineer must possess professional skills, know the international business and marketing, understand multicultural business life situations and speak English fluently. In this paper the authors describe an International Pulp and Paper Technology (IPPT) specialization option at Tampere Polytechnic University of Applied Sciences and pedagogical means that have been adopted as a response to the challenges that globalisation causes to engineering education in pulp and paper technology. The main idea of the IPPT specialization option is to achieve content and language integrated learning (CLIL). In order to achieve this, versatile pedagogical means have been adopted such as pre-lecture assignments, cooperative learning sessions, miniseminars and seminars, negotiation simulations and writing learning journals. The first implementation of a renewed pulp and paper specialization option is described as well as the impact of the changes on student learning. The pros and cons of adapting quite a few different teaching methods are also discussed. This research is a case study and can be classified as action research with evaluative features.