scholarly journals ARE MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN CAPSTONE'S STUDENTS MORE INNOVATIVE THAN MONODISCIPLINARY ONES?

Author(s):  
Narges Balouchestani Asli ◽  
Kamran Behdinan

Educating Innovative minds is one of the main objectives of educational institutions. In curricula, capstone design courses provide the biggest opportunity for students to be innovative and creative. To prepare students for the multidisciplinary workplace, many institutions have initiated multidisciplinary capstones besides their departmental capstones. This paper explores innovation in multidisciplinary and mechanical engineering capstone design courses. Comparing multidisciplinary and monodisciplinary capstones with regard to the students’ innovation will inform educational institutions about the best practices to prepare an environment for innovation to flourish. In this study, we define innovation as the ability to come up with creative ideas and being able to implement them. Our quantitative study measures innovation from rubrics that was assessed by supervisors and clients during the course of the projects. We also assessed innovation based on the students’ self-report. So innovation was measured from both external (supervisors) and internal (students) perspectives. Our results show that functional diversity of multidisciplinary capstones affects students' ability to be innovative.

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Murray ◽  
Joseph L. Garbini

Abstract Capstone design courses in engineering, which provide students the opportunity to tackle open-ended, real-world projects, are generally held in high regard as learning experiences. A relatively new and increasingly important component of engineering is the area of mechatronics. In this paper, we review the goals of capstone design courses and examine how well suited mechatronics projects are for use as projects in capstone design courses. Our experiences in using mechatronics projects in the senior-level capstone design course in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington are presented. From these experiences, we demonstrate that mechatronics projects are particulary well suited for use in capstone design.


Author(s):  
Antony J Hodgson ◽  
Machiel Van der Loos

In the UBC Mechanical Engineering Department, we have recently shifted from using formal reports as our primary documentation process in our capstone design course to a 'design dossier' approach in which students document their work on a task-by-task basis. While this approach has significant benefits in terms of students learning how to document their design work on a routine basis, it has produced challenges in marking a wide range and volume of submissions from different teams working on different projects. In this paper and presentation, we share our experiences of using marking rubrics inspired by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board's list of graduate attributes.


Author(s):  
Kristen Izaryk ◽  
Robin Edge ◽  
Dawn Lechwar

Purpose The purpose of this article is to explore and describe the approaches and specific assessment tools that speech-language pathologists are currently using to assess social communication disorders (SCDs) in children, in relation to current best practices. Method Ninety-four speech-language pathologists completed an online survey asking them to identify which of the following approaches they use to assess children with SCD: parent/teacher report, naturalistic observation, formal assessment, language sample analysis, interviews, semistructured tasks, and peer/self-report. Participants were also asked to identify specific assessment tools they use within each approach. Results Participants most commonly assess SCDs by combining interviews, naturalistic observation, language sampling, parent/teacher report, and formal assessment. Semistructured tasks and peer/self-report tools were less frequently utilized. Several established parent/teacher report and formal assessment tools were commonly identified for assessing SCDs. Most participants use an informal approach for interviews, language sampling, and naturalistic observations in their SCD assessment process. Conclusions Generally, participants follow best practices for assessing SCDs by combining several different approaches. Some considerations for future assessment are identified, including the use of established protocols in the place of informal approaches in order to make the assessment of SCDs more systematic. Future directions for research are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Joy Joshua Maina

The clamour for better quality graduates by architects in the Nigerian Construction Industry (NCI) necessitates a look into the core competencies and the adequacy of architecture education in preparing architecture graduates for professional practice. 116 self-report likertscale questionnaires from architecture graduates (2009-2015), academics and employers were analysed to establish core competencies developed by the graduates while in school. Descriptive statistics, t-tests as well as Mann-Whitney tests for differences in ratings were employed for the study. Results reveal the perceived adequacy of architecture education for the future career of graduates from the academic perspective. Graduates were most proficient at design related competencies while AutoCAD was still considered the most important CAD competency for architecture graduates in the NCI. The study recommends more frequent evaluations of competencies for employability in collaboration with industry as well as embracing BIM related software in line with global best practices. Keywords: Academics, Architecture, Employers, Graduates, Professional competencies, NCI


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Yang

<p>As a very important skill both in English teaching and learning, reading strategy has been emphasized at home and abroad for a long time. Many scholars and teachers make research on undergraduates of English major or non-English major. However, the postgraduates are often neglected. Actually, it is also imperative to make a study among postgraduates of non-English majors, getting the information of their use of reading strategies and giving some useful suggestions to them. Therefore, this paper makes a quantitative study among 40 postgraduates from College of Mechanical Engineering in Chang’an University.This study shows that postgraduates of non-English major in Chang’an university do not frequently use reading strategies to improve their reading speed and proficiency. And there is a big difference between the successful learners and unsuccessful learners in terms of the use of reading strategies.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 1194-1212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anh Tuan Nguyen ◽  
Nguyen Vang-Phuc Nguyen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices of industrial engineering (IE) programs that could be learnt and used at other educational institutions. Design/methodology/approach Nine IE programs in the USA are benchmarked using a conceptual framework that considers an educational program as a system consisting of a purpose, a curriculum, resources, and quality processes. The information used in benchmarking is collected from the program self-study reports, course catalogs, and websites which are available on the internet. Findings It is found that in spite of their diversity in history, missions, sizes, and reputations, the studied programs are rather unified in terms of purpose definition, curriculum formation, resource selection, and quality process usage. From the analysis, a template of IE curriculum is proposed. Research limitations/implications As the selection of the studied programs is based on the availability of the information, the findings may not be representative for IE programs in the USA. Future work can aim at comparing IE programs from various countries. Practical implications The findings could be used as benchmarks by IE schools interested in the improvement of operations. Originality/value A conceptual framework for benchmarking is proposed and proves useful for comparing educational programs. The findings represent the current best practices at IE schools in the USA.


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