scholarly journals Project Management: A Critical Area Of Study For Engineering & Engineering Technology Students

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jule Dee Scarborough
Author(s):  
Allan MacKenzie ◽  
Jan Boer

 Abstract – The Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) program at McMaster University, W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology differentiates itself through its experiential and industry-driven approach to teaching and learning. The B.Tech program initiated a pilot faculty-student co-design project for the Project Management course delivered to third-year engineering technology students. In the past, the faculty has struggled to find a major project assignment that gives students workplace readiness skills in project management in a real-world context. The faculty and a fourth-year undergraduate student worked together to co-design a term long project, which treated their personal educational deliverables (e.g. course work, assessment deadlines, financial accountabilities), as a project to manage. The paper will bring together key perspectives from this pilot co-design experience, namely, the undergraduate course developer, faculty liaison, as well as feedback from the students in the course. The authors found that while students appreciated the accompanying project documentation, the co-design team must continue to demonstrate the usefulness of working with MS Project as software enabling workplace readiness.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devin R. Berg

Inquiry-based learning is an educational approach that allows the student to take ownership over the education process by self-identifying a problem and formulating their own solution. The application of this method of teaching was explored in an introductory mechanics course taken by both engineering and engineering technology students. Students were tasked with applying the principles of fundamental static equilibrium analysis to objects found in their normal surroundings. The deliverable for this assignment consisted of a photograph of an object they found to be in static equilibrium and a short description of how the state of the object could be described mathematically. Student submissions for this task exhibited a wide range of quality and imagination. Examples of student work are presented along with discussion of lessons learned and recommendations for the use of this method in the future. The overall student response to this task was positive and thus these efforts will be expanded.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document