Developing Students to Meet the Changing Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• C W Chuen
• 21 May 2002

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Rapid development of technology
• More challenging
• Lifelong learning ability

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Final year projects

• Planning
• Acquiring new knowledge
• Solving problems
• Analyzing results
• Criticizing

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Project work can provide opportunities for
  students

• to develop problem solving skills
• to acquire new knowledge
• to plan their projects
• to use discussions to promote learning
• to motivate learning using self-assessment

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Three stages

• understand the problems
• devise different strategies and plans
• investigate the impact of project work

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Understand the problems
• interview student groups (HD, BEng, MEng)

• factors affecting project choices
• interest
• ability
• career
• appropriate means to integrate theories and
  practice

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Understand the problems

• not enough understanding of the projects in order
  to identify the challenges and to plan in advance
• affect planning and motivation
• tutor support

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work
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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Devise different strategies and plans

• devise a plan and a timetable
• select study environments
• good planning helps relaxing
• use discussions to promote learning
• self-monitor of learning

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Devise different strategies and plans

• develop problem solving techniques
• develop transferable skills

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Examples of problem solving skills
• break down technique

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Examples of problem solving skills
• from simple to complex problem

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Examples of problem solving skills
• backward reasoning

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Examples of problem solving skills
• particular-to-general analysis

• generalize particular items that can yield a
  general solution to the problem

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Examples of problem solving skills

• fuzzy problem solving technique
• neural problem solving technique
• model reference problem solving technique
• trail and error approach

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Guidelines posted on the internet to help students

• to start the project
• to search for project information
• to use systemic approach
• to write up the report
• to present the project

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• Investigate the impact of project work

• Encouraged to use different strategies freely
• Asked about the effectiveness of taking these
  actions

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work
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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• More than 60 of the students feel confident to
  solve new problems in the future
• 10 of the students felt that they were not yet
  prepared to engage in lifelong learning
• 10 of the students who did not feel confident to
  cope with the workload in the future

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Developing Students to Meet the Changing
Challenge of the Profession via Project Work

• The experience gained from planning their
  projects, holding group discussions,
  self-assessing their own learning and developing
  their transferable skills can make them feel
  confident to solve new problems