Complete thesis - Murdoch University

y working on the assignments by myself).They perceived the environment (and the teacher) as non-threatening (I personally believethe unit was excellently conducted as per how it was constructed to be), and were generallycomfortable with the environment established (suggesting changes is rather difficult as thecourse is designed for self-teaching with supervision; maybe, sometimes it would be not uselessto include a few training sessions (like a lecture) in the project. This would assure thateveryone’s has a based understanding of the actual content. Of course, this would lead to thedisadvantage that the students don’t learn things on there own. In conclusion I would liketo say that I’m not quite sure about this), though some students would have preferred moredeadlines imposed (while I kept up with the readings and assignments I ended up gettingbehind in creating the mind maps and logging my personal journal. While I acknowledgethat is my responsibility to manage my own time it would have been useful if this task waschecked more frequently). Some students also saw the value of reflection on their progress(the personal journals can be a useful tool to ensure the unit learning’s are integrated intothe students existing knowledge/experience and that the students behaviours are modified toalign with those required to be a successful engineering graduate.[...] Weekly checking of theweekly journals would be useful in ensuring they are being used as a tool to guide studentdevelopment into the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and the non technical aspects of theirlearning).However, the high Meaning Orientations of some members of the cohort is a likely indicatorof their ability to exploit the environment to their benefit. So, in this cycle, the learningmodel aligned well with the discipline and with the characteristics of (most of) the studentcohort. This suggests a question for future study – should student characteristics be used asa determinant for engagement with a learning model (or in fact with a discipline)? As anaside, two students in this cohort decided to switch specialisation to SE after this semester.A Department-wide review of the Design Studios was undertaken at the end of the firstsemester offerings. Feedback was sought from all academic staff involved and student representativesacross all Design Studios, and discussed during a 1-day workshop. As the mostdeveloped of Studios, ENG301 acted as benchmark. The conclusion reached was that, whilerefinement was needed - for many staff this was the first implementation of non-traditionallearning environments, and a need for student feedback aligned to the learning environmentidentified, Design Studios had been successful. A decision was also made in that forum tocontinue the orientation programme (Design Week). Students commented positively on theprovision of an introduction and rationale to PBL and Design Studios (46% of commentsreceived (n = 33)) and to the value of working in interdisciplinary groups (30% of comments361