New pedagogical approach to teaching about Generation-IV fast reactors

This report gives an account of new pedagogical approaches being introduced in tertiary engineering education and aimed at improving student learning. Such methods are often subsumed under the term of active learning methods, based on the observation that students learn much better if they are engaged in well-designed activities under the teacher's supervision. In most cases, active learning methods heavily rely on the use of digital technologies to support learning and even to complement the synchronous interactive sessions with asynchronous sessions. In this report, some examples of active learning methods are presented, as well as some examples of digital technologies to support or complement learning. Some illustrations of the use of such new pedagogical approaches in nuclear engineering are given. How to use active learning methods in existing curricula is also discussed. A more widespread use of active learning methods and digital tools in nuclear engineering would allow making the field more attractive, pedagogy-wise, as well as better educating tomorrow's nuclear engineers.