scholarly journals Scholarship Of Engagement And Project Based Learning: Experiential Based Learning Project For Construction Management Students At Western Carolina University

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Miers ◽  
George Ford
Author(s):  
Barry Hyman ◽  
Sanjeev Khanna ◽  
Yuyi Lin ◽  
Jim Borgford-Parnell

This paper describes an NSF funded project in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Department at the University of Missouri. A primary goal of this project is to systematically increase project-based learning (PBL) experiences throughout the MAE curriculum. To accomplish this goal, recent capstone design projects that need further refinements serve as the basis for PBL activities throughout the MAE curriculum. A major tool for facilitating these refinement efforts is a new senior/graduate Design Management course in which each student in this course learns how to plan and manage design projects. These students then implement their learning by serving as project team managers in the courses in which the refinement activities are being conducted. This paper provides a detailed case study of five refinements to one capstone design that took place in four different MAE courses during the Spring 2011 semester. The paper describes a Fall 2009 capstone project that consisted of designing a portable wood chipper. The student design was very promising, leading to a chipper with significantly greater chipping capacity than commercially available chippers of the same size and weight. However, several faculty members reviewed the results and identified additional opportunities for refining the design. This paper describes activities during Spring 2011 when students in four different MAE courses developed refinements to the original design. The roles of the Design Management students in these activities are discussed. The paper also includes a discussion of the methods and findings of the formative assessment process, including interviews with, and surveys of, faculty and students.


Author(s):  
Perry Forsythe

The term “work ready graduates” is commonly used by Universities to describe students who have been well prepared and who can seamlessly enter professional practice. It is an ideal that is simpler said than achieved in reality. Students in construction management often work and study concurrently but this is often undertaken in an ad hoc way that does not derive the benefits of the potential synergy between the two. The paper explores the need to create such synergy by operationalising Work Integrated Learning concepts and the issues and conditions involved in implementing at the study-work interface for construction management students. The extant literature is used to build the case and identify relevant issues that need to be addressed in the context of contemporary higher education thinking. Research findings are presented from the perspective of the university sector, the student and the industry. Based on findings and insights from these stakeholders, the paper proposes a means of enabling Work Integrated Learning via a structured student-industry network. The brief for such a network is introduced with a view to real world application.


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