Theo Jansen project in engineering design course and a design example

Objectives of a project-oriented mechanical engineering course, Engineering Design, were achieved through a design project, where students designed, built and demonstrated an extreme version of a basic Theo Jansen device. Through this project, junior students in the University of Louisiana fully developed the capability of applying mathematic and kinematic knowledge in the analysis and design of mechanisms. Students also developed oral and written communication skills, which would be used in design environments, through the presentation of results in both oral and written forms. An assessment of the design project indicated that effective teaching and learning spread through the semester, with the junior students acting as project managers and experiencing design practices. An example of a student-designed Theo Jansen device is presented in this paper to show the study results achieved by the students.     

Design and implementation of a project-based active/cooperative engineering design course for freshmen

A project-based active/cooperative design course is planned, implemented, assessed and evaluated to achieve several desired engineering outcomes. The course allows freshman-level students to gain professional hands-on engineering design experience through an opportunity to practise teamwork, quality principles, communication skills, life-long learning, realistic constraints and awareness of current domestic and global challenges. Throughout successive design reports and in-class assignments, the students are required by the end of the semester to communicate, clearly and concisely, the details of their design both orally and in writing through a functional artefact/prototype, a design notebook, an A0 project poster and a final oral presentation. In addition to these direct assessment tools, several indirect measures are used to ensure triangulation. Assignments are based on customer expectations using a detailed checklist. This paper shows the direct and indirect assessment tools that indicated a high level of achievement of course learning outcomes and a high level of student satisfaction.     

How to Teach Engineering and Industrial Design: a U.K. Experience

Within the U.K. there has, over recent years, been a strong correlation between the lack of total design literacy of graduate engineers and the decline of the U.K. manufacturing industry. With the formation of the Engineering Council and the mandatory requirement of design studies in undergraduate courses, this trend is being reversed. Unfortunately the inclusion of industrial design is being ignored. The paper explores the possibilities of teaching engineering, whatever the discipline, through an open-ended design project approach at all years of a course. The use of CAD and professional facilities are recommended to be appropriate 'within a student-centred learning environment. However, staff attitudes to a total design activity—not engineering or industrial design only—have to change radically for the engineering graduate to leave higher education with an appropriate toolkit of knowledge and skills. The paper concludes that specific engineering/product design undergraduate courses are essential to meeting the immediate and future needs of U.K. industry.     

Impact of senior design project for the development of leadership and management skills in construction management

Senior design courses are a core part of curricula across engineering and technology disciplines. Such courses offer Construction Management (CMG) students the opportunity to bring together, assimilate and apply the knowledge they have acquired over their entire undergraduate academic programme to an applied technical project. Senior or Capstone design course engages students in a real-world project, enhance leadership development, and prepare to manage and lead project teams. The CMG programme's multidisciplinary approach at Alabama A&M University, combines essential components of construction techniques with concepts of business management to develop technically qualified individuals for responsible management roles in the design, construction and operation of major construction projects. This paper analyses the performance of the students and improvement due to the interaction with the faculty advisors and industrial panel during the two semester Capstone project. The results of this Capstone sequence have shown a continuous improvement of student performance.     

对本科教学工作水平评估中毕业设计评审的分析和建议

毕业设计(论文)的评审是本科教学工作水平评估的重要环节。通过对2003年部分参评工科院校的毕业设计(论文)的评估数据进行统计分析,结果显示,学校对毕业设计(论文)的评估结果优于专家的评估结果,专家进校考察时抽调的毕业设计(论文)的评定成绩和前期抽调的毕业设计(论文)的评定成绩并没有特别明显的差异。因此,本科教学工作水平评估有必要进行相应的改进,如进一步规范毕业设计(论文)评阅表,加强专家的遴选与培训工作,加强毕业设计(论文)抽调的管理和组织工作。同时,毕业设计(论文)的质量评估可以考虑次数。     

数控设备安装调试及维修实验台教学项目设计与实施

为了提高机械设计制造及其自动化专业学生的工程意识和综合实践能力,依据CDIO工程教育的理念,按照能力进阶型系列化探究式项目教学法的基本思路,结合学生课外科技创新和毕业设计,开发了数控设备安装调试及维修综合性教学项目,给出了该项目的具体实施过程。对该项目在学生综合素质培养中的作用以及项目教学对教师和学生的要求做了分析。     

“机械设计”课程教学模式探索

“机械设计”是高等院校面向机类、近机类工科专业开设的专业基础课,是培养学生综合设计能力、创新能力的重要环节。文章根据本科应用型技术人才的培养要求,结合本科学生的教学实践,并考虑“机械设计”课程内容及其特点,提出了授课内容、授课形式、考核方式、教师培养与评价标准等教学改革方法与思路,对于促进学生综合设计能力和技术创新能力的提高以及教师教学水平的提高等方面有着重要的意义。     

Writing4practice in engineering courses: Implementation and assessment approaches

In this article, we analyze a two‐semester effort to integrate writing instruction into a multi‐disciplinary sophomore engineering design course in Northern Arizona University's College of Engineering and Technology. Specifically, we describe the programmatic implementation and assessment approach to evaluate whether student writing improved over the course of the semester. After discussing the reasons for taking a writing‐intensive approach to engineering, we analyze the results of a pre‐and post‐test administered over the span of an academic semester. Although the outcome of our assessment did not show significant improvement, we argue that writing instruction is important for increasing students’ overall learning skills. We conclude by pointing out several benefits and disadvantages of trying to assess writing improvement over two one‐semester periods.     

Innovative assessment paradigm to enhance student learning in engineering education

Incorporation of student self-assessment (SSA) in engineering education offers opportunities to support and encourage learner-led-learning. This paper presents an innovative assessment paradigm that integrates formative, summative, and SSA to enhance student learning. The assessment innovation was implemented in a senior-level civil engineering design course. Direct evidence of the impact of employing this innovation on student learning and achievement was derived by monitoring student academic performance in direct assessment tasks throughout the semester. Students’ feedback demonstrated the effectiveness of this innovation to improve their understanding of course topics build their autonomy, independent judgement, and self-regulated learning skills.     

Assessing activity–based learning for a networked course

Networked environments offer new scope for presenting activity based courses, in which activities and reflection form the central backbone of course pedagogy. Such courses promise an enriching approach to study, but there are also challenges for the design of assessment. This paper describes a qualitative study of student and tutor perspectives on the assessment of an innovative undergraduate course at the UK Open University which has employed an activity–based approach. It discusses the relationship between assessment, student participation, and the development of skills, and then outlines the priorities for the design of assessment for such courses.     

Assessment and prediction of success in first year physics at an Australian university

A method of assessment, involving six one-hour tests, with provision to repeat four of them, has been used with favourable student and staff reaction in first year, two semester undergraduate physics courses. The style of question and marking criteria used previously in a conventional examination are retained.The relationship between performance in Physics I, high school background and mark in the first physics test, held in the fifth week of the university course. are investigated through a series of regression analyses. An attempt is made to arrive at an appropriate entry criterion for admission to Physics I.     

Explicitness of criteria in peer assessment processes for first-year engineering students

This article will outline the motives for the implementation of peer assessment as put into action at the first year of the Civil Engineering course of the University of Minho. The implementation of new assessment methods was a consequence of the successful implementation of peer assessment at other engineering courses. During the semester, three assessment moments took place, in which students assessed the work of their peers. Assessment criteria were defined in a negotiation process between students and teacher. The students subsequently graded the work of their colleagues and had to provide a clear justification for each given grade. The aim of this method is to involve students in the subject, enhance their motivation and deepen their learning. Advantages and disadvantages of peer assessment are discussed. The results that have been obtained so far draw attention to the nature of assessment criteria and the corresponding explicitness.     

浅谈本科评估对民办本科教育质量的促进作用

对于新建的民办本科院校来说,主动提出参加教育部第一轮的本科教学工作水平评估是严峻考验,也是发展机遇。迎接评估和做好评估准备工作,是民办本科院校的一项重要任务,也是新建本科院校的一个共同课题。本文结合自己在学校迎评创建中工作,浅谈了本科评估对民办本科教育质量的促进作用。     

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Service-learning is an ideal teaching approach to use in courses on the psychology of aging because it allows experiential education to be actively integrated with classroom instruction. This article describes the results of adding a service-learning option to a lecture course on the psychology of aging. For this course, service-learning took place at local nursing homes, area retirement communities, and the local community center, which houses an activity program for older adults. Each student was required to complete 30 hr community service-learning during the semester, maintain a journal, write a summary paper, join a reflection group, and participate in a group presentation. Students were involved in a wide range of activities, from assisting with a hot lunch program to spending time talking with nursing home residents. Evaluation of the effectiveness of this approach was established by using open-ended student evaluations that were completed at the end of the semester. Data were gathered over 2 years from the portion of the class (approximately one third) each semester) who chose to complete a one-credit service-learning experience. The service-learning component significantly enhanced the course experience for the students, instructor, graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, and facilities involved. Overall, the majority of students affirmed that their participation in the service-learning project related well to the course, and facility responses to student service-learning participants were overwhelmingly positive.     

Fostering Creativity Through Engineering Projects

Final year projects are a showcase for engineering students’ creativity. All final year engineering students at Swinburne University of Technology are required to spend part of their final semester of studies developing and completing various aspects of a major project. The theme of the project work is defined either by industrial sponsors or academic supervisors or by both. In addition, project guidelines are provided by the university for the final submission and completion of the work. The project may be any combination of research, design or developmental work. Within the constraints required by these factors, students’ creativity in their approach and execution of the project work may be both limited and expanded to simulate conditions experienced in a work environment. The culmination of the project work is in a written, oral and visual presentation to a professional audience. It is the students’ own creativity which determines not only the format of all three forms of presentations, but also their assessment which is again limited or enhanced by constraints of time and resources. Examples of project work creativity are presented which highlight and emphasize the broad spectrum which such creativity can encompass.     

Problem solving and engineering design,introducing bachelor students to engineering practice at K. U. Leuven

A present-day engineer has a large scientific knowledge; he is a team-player, eloquent communicator and life-long learner. At the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the course ‘Problem Solving and Engineering Design’ introduces engineering students from the first semester onwards into real engineering practice and teamwork. Working in small groups, the students integrate basic principles of all regular scientific courses to solve real-life engineering problems. This makes the coursework more interesting and helps the students to master the abstract theories presented in lectures. Through the increasing complexity of the assignments, the students are gradually confronted with technical and social competencies such as a systematic approach to problem solving and engineering design, teamwork, project management and communication skills. ‘Problem Solving and Engineering Design’ has been implemented in the bachelor of engineering since September 2003. The current paper describes the course objectives, the way the course is implemented to support project-based learning and the feedback obtained from the didactic team and the students.     

A place for arguing in engineering education: a study on students’ assessments

This paper focuses on the issue of how engineering programmes demand and/or promote argumentative reasoning, which is a subsequent aspect of curricular development. This was the main objective of the project on which this paper reports. This is to say that the focus is on assessment as a way to establish to what extent argumentative reasoning is demanded and mobilised in teaching and learning processes. This aim was achieved using a sample of assignments developed in courses in different Bologna undergraduate programmes at the Engineering School at the University of Porto, during the first semester of the academic year 2009/2010. Whereas problem solving in engineering constitutes a structural element in the curricular organisation of the engineering programmes and is strongly related to argumentative skills, it was possible to conclude that students demonstrate and explain extensively, but do not argue, possibly because their teachers do not invite them to do so in assessment situations.     

Meta-assessment in a project-based systems engineering course

Project-based learning (PBL) facilitates significant learning, but it poses a major assessment challenge for assessing individual content knowledge. We developed and implemented an assessment approach and tool for a mandatory undergraduate systems engineering PBL-based course. We call this type of assessment student-oriented meta-assessment. Research participants included 131 undergraduate engineering students who carried out team projects requiring conceptual modelling of complex systems. Next, individual students assessed their peer team projects. Finally, the course staff assessed students individually, based on the content knowledge that was reflected in students’ comments to their peers, by using the new meta-assessment tool. The research findings validated the meta-assessment tool which can serve for assessing various PBL courses. Our contribution is twofold: a new approach for assessing project-based undergraduate engineering courses, and classification of meta-assessment methods into three types, where a student-oriented meta-assessment as one of the three meta-assessment methods is our newly introduced and validated method.