student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part B: Building Leadership Capacity - DSC: Property, Construction & Project Management ART Report
student learning. The lecturer running the course sought alternative higher
quality spaces to use. In the investigation, he observed how TAFE programs
approached similar exercises. This lead to the discovery of an excellent
purpose built and fully equipped facility complete with tutors. There was
sufficient spare capacity to accommodate our higher education students.
The lecturer sought and was successful in gaining Dual Sector LTIF funding
for a trial using TAFE facilities. Instead of an internal CAD teaching series
of three 2 – hour lectures followed by individual work in the CAD laboratories,
the Dual Sector LTIF initiative was used and CAD teaching was outsourced
to the School of Design in TAFE. The School of Design conducted the CAD
training in six 4 – hour workshops, held at the TAFE Brunswick Campus
CAD training rooms. Each workshop contained a maximum of 19
students, so the 220 students were divided into 12 workshop groups.
Outline the stages of action taken and how it was reflected in the action
research cycle process ( Plan, Act, Observe, Reflect)
1154 – An external industry person, a past graduate of the Program,
was invited by the Course Coordinator to conduct the case study lectures.
RMIT Property Services Group were invited to contribute to lectures, as the
case study is for RMIT. Several meetings were held for the course contributors,
to plan the course, assessment, and course delivery. In the first lecture
students were briefed regarding the reflective journals, the case study, and how
they could provide feedback through undertaking this work. The Course Team
met briefly after each lecture and reviewed the success and progress of the
course. Students were challenged in each lecture to provide verbal feedback,
as well as making an entry in their reflective journal. At the end of the semester,
after assessment was completed, and feedback given to the students
regarding their reports, reflective journals and presentations, the Course
Team met for a debriefing and evaluation session.
1107 – Several meetings were held for the Course design team, to set up
the provision of the TAFE CAD teaching component of the course. The CAD
workshops were conducted at the TAFE Brunswick campus, for six out of
the total twelve weeks of Semester One. Students from past years of CAD
teaching were consulted regarding how they felt it could be improved, and
new students for BUIL1107 did an expectations survey in Week One. Students
went from preparing CAD drawings to undertaking conventional hard-copy
drawings throughout the semester, to experience both modes. At the end of
the semester students did a follow-up to the expectations survey, to give their
experiences and to confirm or otherwise whether their expectations were met.
The Course Team reviewed the students’ results for both CAD and traditional
drawings, and also reviewed the design of the course at a final meeting. It was
decided at this meeting to provide some further specialist 3D CAD training
in Semester 2 to those students interested. This was a result of student
feedback stating they would like to do more CAD in the future.
In addition, several items in some of the School’s learning spaces were
identified as badly needing changing or upgrading. This involved providing
new chairs and tablets in two learning spaces and having “SmartBoard”
technology installed in the same spaces. Internal School funding was
used for these purposes.
How have students been involved in the project?
Students were involved via focus groups, reflective journal submissions and
informal discussions.
Page 123