This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year pr... more This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year project-based mechanical engineering design course. The learning activity was a continuation of the use of critical reflection as a pedagogical model first introduced in a Faculty-wide common first year engineering design course. In the new course, the pedagogy was centred on the “student as engineering design consultant”, utilising authentic learning experiences obtained through collaboration with industry who contributed a variety of commercial design problems for student design teams to work on. The course aims were to achieve a more balanced set of outcomes, integrating knowledge and skills from both technical and professional competencies. The learning activity was introduced in the 4th year course to leverage both the motivation of the student cohort as they contemplated graduation into the workforce, and the affective impact presented by engaging with industry. Four written reflective tasks of 1.5 – 2 pages were assigned, aimed at addressing the Engineers Australia’s Professional Engineering Stage 1 Competencies for independent learning, complex problem solving and demonstrating effective communication skills. The goal of the reflective writing tasks was to promote design thinking as a means of self-directed problem solving for professional practice. The topics for each task were also intended to prepare students for a career as a professional engineer and were assigned over the course of the semester. From an analysis of the students’ written responses it can be seen the extent to which reflection enhances the depth of the learning process and provides opportunities for students to move from the role of the learner to that of graduate engineering practitioner.
This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year pr... more This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year project-based mechanical engineering design course. The learning activity was a continuation of the use of critical reflection as a pedagogical model first introduced in a Faculty-wide common first year engineering design course.
This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity intended to enhance the ... more This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity intended to enhance the development of students’ lifelong learning skills and the formation of their identities as professional engineers within a new industry focused capstone mechanical engineering design course. Within the literature, educating engineering students to successfully grapple with the complexity of socio-technical problems as well as problems that do not yet exist is a critical challenge for engineering academics and requires a better understanding of the discipline specific qualities required to engage in lifelong learning. Using a range of linguistic analysis approaches, including thematic analysis, concordance analysis and Systemic Functional Grammar, evaluation of students’ written responses demonstrated the extent to which reflection enhances the depth of the learning process and provides insight into how students move from the role of the learner to that of graduate engineering practitioner. The results suggest a distinct difference between top and bottom performers in the course in the degree of self-efficacy as reflected in their level of agency, degree of comfort with owning their own learning and transitioning from a student to a professional identity. With further development and extended implementation throughout the curriculum, reflective writing has significant implications for the design of curriculum required for the future to develop student habits of lifelong learning.
Peer Review is used in a first year engineering design course to assess a series of reflective wr... more Peer Review is used in a first year engineering design course to assess a series of reflective writing entries on the engineering design process and teamwork. Peer review can be beneficial for both reviewer and writer in increasing their awareness of how well they are communicating their learning, and, in providing opportunities to gain insights from each others' experiences and understandings of the engineering design process. However, there is limited literature on objective assessment of reflections about the engineering design process. This paper explores the question, what are the linguistic features that distinguish different levels of reflection? The first stage of the investigation was a text analysis of reflective writing representing both high and low peer review scores, to identify similar and dissimilar linguistic features in the texts. While the analysis is ongoing, preliminary findings have revealed clear differences between "good" and "poor" reflective writing. These differences have been found in writers' use of connectives and appraisal. Reflective texts that provide rich explanations and which are more likely to criticise (rather than praise) their own learning process are more likely to be rated high by peer reviewers. Future investigation will map linguistic features in reflective writing onto learning taxonomies such as Blooms and SOLO taxonomy to provide clear guidelines for assessing reflective writing on the engineering design process.
This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those with... more This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those without the assumed entry standard, into a standard electrical engineering program without compromising any other educational objectives. All students who commenced an engineering degree were tested as part of their first session's assessment activities. Those identified as having inadequate academic literacy were directed to study a specifically designed credit-bearing course, which is controlled by the Engineering Faculty but was designed and is taught in collaboration with academic literacy teachers. Students who completed this course responded positively and also demonstrated measurable improvement in their communication skills. The approach has alleviated the skepticism about teaching academic literacy usually found amongst engineering faculty staff and has been adopted by the wider Engineering Faculty.
This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year pr... more This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year project-based mechanical engineering design course. The learning activity was a continuation of the use of critical reflection as a pedagogical model first introduced in a Faculty-wide common first year engineering design course. In the new course, the pedagogy was centred on the “student as engineering design consultant”, utilising authentic learning experiences obtained through collaboration with industry who contributed a variety of commercial design problems for student design teams to work on. The course aims were to achieve a more balanced set of outcomes, integrating knowledge and skills from both technical and professional competencies. The learning activity was introduced in the 4th year course to leverage both the motivation of the student cohort as they contemplated graduation into the workforce, and the affective impact presented by engaging with industry. Four written reflective tasks of 1.5 – 2 pages were assigned, aimed at addressing the Engineers Australia’s Professional Engineering Stage 1 Competencies for independent learning, complex problem solving and demonstrating effective communication skills. The goal of the reflective writing tasks was to promote design thinking as a means of self-directed problem solving for professional practice. The topics for each task were also intended to prepare students for a career as a professional engineer and were assigned over the course of the semester. From an analysis of the students’ written responses it can be seen the extent to which reflection enhances the depth of the learning process and provides opportunities for students to move from the role of the learner to that of graduate engineering practitioner.
This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year pr... more This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity within a new 4th year project-based mechanical engineering design course. The learning activity was a continuation of the use of critical reflection as a pedagogical model first introduced in a Faculty-wide common first year engineering design course.
This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity intended to enhance the ... more This paper examines the use of reflective writing as a learning activity intended to enhance the development of students’ lifelong learning skills and the formation of their identities as professional engineers within a new industry focused capstone mechanical engineering design course. Within the literature, educating engineering students to successfully grapple with the complexity of socio-technical problems as well as problems that do not yet exist is a critical challenge for engineering academics and requires a better understanding of the discipline specific qualities required to engage in lifelong learning. Using a range of linguistic analysis approaches, including thematic analysis, concordance analysis and Systemic Functional Grammar, evaluation of students’ written responses demonstrated the extent to which reflection enhances the depth of the learning process and provides insight into how students move from the role of the learner to that of graduate engineering practitioner. The results suggest a distinct difference between top and bottom performers in the course in the degree of self-efficacy as reflected in their level of agency, degree of comfort with owning their own learning and transitioning from a student to a professional identity. With further development and extended implementation throughout the curriculum, reflective writing has significant implications for the design of curriculum required for the future to develop student habits of lifelong learning.
Peer Review is used in a first year engineering design course to assess a series of reflective wr... more Peer Review is used in a first year engineering design course to assess a series of reflective writing entries on the engineering design process and teamwork. Peer review can be beneficial for both reviewer and writer in increasing their awareness of how well they are communicating their learning, and, in providing opportunities to gain insights from each others' experiences and understandings of the engineering design process. However, there is limited literature on objective assessment of reflections about the engineering design process. This paper explores the question, what are the linguistic features that distinguish different levels of reflection? The first stage of the investigation was a text analysis of reflective writing representing both high and low peer review scores, to identify similar and dissimilar linguistic features in the texts. While the analysis is ongoing, preliminary findings have revealed clear differences between "good" and "poor" reflective writing. These differences have been found in writers' use of connectives and appraisal. Reflective texts that provide rich explanations and which are more likely to criticise (rather than praise) their own learning process are more likely to be rated high by peer reviewers. Future investigation will map linguistic features in reflective writing onto learning taxonomies such as Blooms and SOLO taxonomy to provide clear guidelines for assessing reflective writing on the engineering design process.
This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those with... more This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those without the assumed entry standard, into a standard electrical engineering program without compromising any other educational objectives. All students who commenced an engineering degree were tested as part of their first session's assessment activities. Those identified as having inadequate academic literacy were directed to study a specifically designed credit-bearing course, which is controlled by the Engineering Faculty but was designed and is taught in collaboration with academic literacy teachers. Students who completed this course responded positively and also demonstrated measurable improvement in their communication skills. The approach has alleviated the skepticism about teaching academic literacy usually found amongst engineering faculty staff and has been adopted by the wider Engineering Faculty.
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Papers by Pam Mort
In the new course, the pedagogy was centred on the “student as engineering design consultant”, utilising authentic learning experiences obtained through collaboration with industry who contributed a variety of commercial design problems for student design teams to work on. The course aims were to achieve a more balanced set of outcomes, integrating knowledge and skills from both technical and professional competencies. The learning activity was introduced in the 4th year course to leverage both the motivation of the student cohort as they contemplated graduation into the workforce, and the affective impact presented by engaging with industry.
Four written reflective tasks of 1.5 – 2 pages were assigned, aimed at addressing the Engineers Australia’s Professional Engineering Stage 1 Competencies for independent learning, complex problem solving and demonstrating effective communication skills. The goal of the reflective writing tasks was to promote design thinking as a means of self-directed problem solving for professional practice. The topics for each task were also intended to prepare students for a career as a professional engineer and were assigned over the course of the semester.
From an analysis of the students’ written responses it can be seen the extent to which reflection enhances the depth of the learning process and provides opportunities for students to move from the role of the learner to that of graduate engineering practitioner.
In the new course, the pedagogy was centred on the “student as engineering design consultant”, utilising authentic learning experiences obtained through collaboration with industry who contributed a variety of commercial design problems for student design teams to work on. The course aims were to achieve a more balanced set of outcomes, integrating knowledge and skills from both technical and professional competencies. The learning activity was introduced in the 4th year course to leverage both the motivation of the student cohort as they contemplated graduation into the workforce, and the affective impact presented by engaging with industry.
Four written reflective tasks of 1.5 – 2 pages were assigned, aimed at addressing the Engineers Australia’s Professional Engineering Stage 1 Competencies for independent learning, complex problem solving and demonstrating effective communication skills. The goal of the reflective writing tasks was to promote design thinking as a means of self-directed problem solving for professional practice. The topics for each task were also intended to prepare students for a career as a professional engineer and were assigned over the course of the semester.
From an analysis of the students’ written responses it can be seen the extent to which reflection enhances the depth of the learning process and provides opportunities for students to move from the role of the learner to that of graduate engineering practitioner.