Personal Reflection on the Engineering Project - Essay Example

Personal Reflection Name Institution Date The University of Southern Queensland usually has five schools, which includes Education, Arts, Business, Science, Engineering and surveying. The Faculty of Engineering and surveying entails four courses namely civil, mechanical, electronic, agricultural and spatial science engineering. Students in the faculty of engineering should have a major concern on the skills for resolve problems, collaboration and communication skills so that they can have good skills at the end of the course. This came into power after realization that the system applied in the university did not provide the students with proper skills needed to solve all challenges that they could have experienced in the course for use in the respective work places. Engineering course involves use of basic factors such as communication, ability to resolving problems in the course, multi-disciplinary cooperation, use of knowledge and skills for use in various life experiences. All these factors described as part of problem based learning system. This system is usually in courses that students need to apply their knowledge and not to acquire. Learning instructions are availed by a facilitator and is usually in groups of a limited number of students therefore students have a duty in their own studies. Peer help, mentoring and group discussions helps students to gain more experience in the respective course so that they can be able to overcome all challenges of learning alone. Students studying a particular course use various levels of learning that Bloom uses to analyze how success a student can be if the levels are used. The first one is knowledge, it entails identifying, and trying to remember all the information and actual details about a particular event introduced in the course. Comprehension is another level of learning that interprets, translates and reviewing of specific information. Application makes use of the provided information in a position that is different from the usual learning perspective. This assists the students to be able to deal with all situations not given by the instructor but are related to a particular course that is engineering in this case. Analysis is another level of learning which splits the whole learning process into parts that are understandable without much difficulty. When components of learning are brought together they form a new unit which is usual different from the original entity. Finally, there is evaluation that involves coming up with judgment about the activities involved in the learning. All these learning become difficulty as one moves downwards; therefore, anyone who wants to succeed has to struggle to maintain the levels that are high in the hierarchy and this will help you in your profession even after your studies. Learning does not end with at the university but one continues to gain more knowledge even in the professional life from the people who are working with. Features that used in learning are usually different depending on the course that someone is taking and the skills that stressed vary according to the course. In the case of engineering, one has to stress on proficiency of the professionalism and technically. In this case, the gap linking theory and practical helps in comprehending education and thinking. Reflection assists one to gain other skills apart from the ones are learnt in a specified discipline. Learning does not end in the university but it continues even to the professional life. In the previous semester, significance of observing asteroids, meteors and other space fragments familiar to the engineering students. Space debris as the unit indicates is located in the upper atmosphere assembled by meteors as they penetrate into the Earth’s atmosphere. According to the NASA’s Orbital Debris Program, there are many parts of space fragments in the Earth’s lower and upper trajectory. Observation of this debris need to be frequently to find out whether there might be a collision with Earth that might occur at anytime. A ground-based telescope observes space fragments though they are low capacity of tracking in terms of finding the site. A number of limitations are posed by the equipment include limitation of the observation duration by the latitude during the day. Longitudes are also a barrier to the equipment since there is limitation in the parts of the sky that the machine can observe at night. In this project, the students are to cooperate and work as a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural group to make analysis and evaluation of challenges experienced by the engineering and survey problems to solve the issues. The students should also come up with solution to the various problems. Statistics online test started on 16/08/2013 and lasted for a week. All the statistical methodologies were availed in form of modules of course materials and tutorials available in terms of resources on the study desk. The statistical study resources consist of five course modules, discussion groups, video recordings of key ideas and problem solving. Followed by individual technical portfolio component that started on 2/09/2013 and peer assessment component starting on 13/09/2013. In the team report, students had to indicate their responsibility in the group. Each team has to contain students from every course. A facilitator will be in charge to every group and will be responsible for the team’s progress. All the team skills and methodologies introduced in ENG1101 were to be in useful in the project. Every student is required to stand for the rules of behavior formulated. Solutions to the problems observed in the project need to be recognized in the specified teams to help in building a team report. All students have to participate in the preparation of the team report. Every member in the group has to assess other members of the team on their progress in the team report. Every group member has to participate in the project and determine how responsibilities for each member are to be distributed. The Bloom’s theory analyzes the different levels of learning that one could use in order to succeed. Participation of each group member in the group assists students in coming up with ways in which they will be able to handle such projects if given in future especially in their professions. Students learn how to tolerate difficult projects if assigned at their profession level and how they can analyze a certain project so that it becomes easy to handle. The team members looked organized than the previous group and were cooperative in every activity that took place in the team. There were new ideas and techniques identified by each member from various members of the group. The entire deadline for the project was adhered to the group strictly. Time management is good because when you finish in time you have all the time to counter check if all that is required for the project done perfectly. At first, the task looked a bit difficult but after taking concentration on the project, it seemed easy. The facilitator of the team handled all the issues that brought argument and conflict issues. Peer assisted learning took place since the leader of the team was focused on the positive outcome of the project. The team leaders ensure that there was total participation by each student in the group. The facilitator also assisted the group by making sure that each individual was present during the group meetings and those who were absent had reasonable apologies. The project helped me in learning many things that could help me in my professional life. For instance, I learnt new techniques that one could use to approach various engineering practical. I learnt from the group members who studied survey as a major discipline since engineering and survey are alike in some approaches of application. In order to improve my individual learning, I was supposed to ask more questions in the places that I did not understand properly. Practicing frequently on the areas that I had some difficulty in was another way that could have helped me to improve my performance on individual technical portfolio. According to this project, I felt that I had contributed as much as I could as compared to the previous project. The project was very helpful since everyone was contributing despite the fact that we were from different disciplines. Everyone seemed to have a different perspective of approaching each problem experienced during the project. This helped me to choose an approach of a certain problem that I could understand properly. References COOK, P. J. (2000). Continental shelf limits: the scientific and legal interface. Oxford [u.a.], Oxford Univ. Press. CAZZOLA, W., STROUD, R. J., & TISATO, F. (2000). Reflection and software engineering. Berlin [u.a.], Springer. COX, M. J. G. (1999). Static corrections for seismic reflection surveys. Tulsa, Okla, Society of Exploration Geophysicists. HACK, H. R. G. K., AZZAM, R., & CHARLIER, R. (2004). Engineering geology for infrastructure planning in Europe a European perspective. Berlin, Springer. SHARMA, P. V. (1997). Environmental and engineering geophysics. Cambridge [u.a.], Cambridge Univ. Press. Read More