95 research outputs found
A Multi-Disciplinary Project to Enhance Workplace Readiness
Engineering graduates are expected to develop a breadth of competencies to prepare for the workplace, encompassing technical knowledge, problem solving and interpersonal skills (IPENZ, 2009). Engineering education often focuses most on the development of studentsâ technical and problem - solving skills and less on the interpersonal skills (Bodmer, Leu, Mira, & Rutter, 2002). This weakness in graduatesâ communication skills has been identified by organisations such as UNESCO. â There is ample evidence that graduate engineers lack the required standard of communication skills , particularly when compared to the needs of industry internationally â (UNESCO International Centre for Engineering Education, 2002) Some engineering programmes attempt to develop studentsâ complementary âsoft skillsâ by including compulsory modules such as Communication skills. At Wintec, these modules are taught by communication specialists, who are non - engineers. However, there is a genuine effort to use engineering contexts for the learning tasks and assessments in these modules, this is sometimes contrived rather than directly applicable to the studentsâ learning in their specialisations. Recently, the authorsâ Wintec colleagues have incorporated the NZDE communication assessments and incorporated them into an intensive Disaster week (Bigham & Harris, 2014) project to achieve an engineering problem - focus in the writing and presentations for students. This approach has been adopted to align with the work of Martin, Maytham, Case & Fraser (2005) who explain that "non-technical skills cannot be taught in isolation from the technical context in which they will be usedâ and further suggest that âintegrated projects are a crucial toolâ to achieve this. This paper focuses on a continuation of this theme, but this time looking at project based learning extended to include multiple disciplines with more challenging technical content
Advocates for teaching: Reconceptualising the practice of teaching development in a university
Teaching development units have been provided at most Australasian and British universities over the last thirty years. Typically, units have provided workshops, courses and individual consultations in a variety of formats. These units have always attracted enthusiasts, but have often struggled to bring about a fundamental shift in organisational thinking about teaching. At the same time, external pressures such as Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) draw academics away from teaching concerns and create additional challenges for staff developers
Student Expectations: The effect of student background and experience
CONTEXT
The perspectives and previous experiences that students bring to their programs of study can affect their approaches to study and the depth of learning that they achieve Prosser & Trigwell, 1999; Ramsden, 2003). Graduate outcomes assume the attainment of welldeveloped independent learning skills which can be transferred to the work-place.
PURPOSE
This 5-year longitudinal study investigates factors influencing studentsâ approaches to learning in the fields of Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, at two higher education institutes delivering programs of various levels in Australia and New Zealand. The study aims to track the development of student approaches to learning as they progress through their program. Through increased understanding of studentsâ approaches, faculty will be better able to design teaching and learning strategies to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body. This paper reports on the first stage of the project.
APPROACH
In August 2017, we ran a pilot of our survey using the Revised Study Process Questionnaire(Biggs, Kember, & Leung, 2001) and including some additional questions related to student demographics and motivation for undertaking their current program of study. Data were analysed to evaluate the usefulness of data collected and to understand the demographics of the student cohort. Over the period of the research, data will be collected using the questionnaire and through focus groups and interviews.
RESULTS
Participants provided a representative sample, and the data collected was reasonable, allowing the questionnaire design to be confirmed.
CONCLUSIONS
At this preliminary stage, the study has provided insight into the student demographics at both institutes and identified aspects of studentsâ modes of engagement with learning. Some areas for improvement of the questionnaire have been identified, which will be implemented for the main body of the study
Prevalence and Characterization of Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder in a Paediatric Population
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
The Binary White Dwarf LHS 3236
The white dwarf LHS 3236 (WD1639+153) is shown to be a double-degenerate
binary, with each component having a high mass. Astrometry at the U.S. Naval
Observatory gives a parallax and distance of 30.86 +/- 0.25 pc and a tangential
velocity of 98 km/s, and reveals binary orbital motion. The orbital parameters
are determined from astrometry of the photocenter over more than three orbits
of the 4.0-year period. High-resolution imaging at the Keck Observatory
resolves the pair with a separation of 31 and 124 mas at two epochs. Optical
and near-IR photometry give a set of possible binary components. Consistency of
all data indicates that the binary is a pair of DA stars with temperatures near
8000 and 7400 K and with masses of 0.93 and 0.91 M_solar; also possible, is a
DA primary and a helium DC secondary with temperatures near 8800 and 6000 K and
with masses of 0.98 and 0.69 M_solar. In either case, the cooling ages of the
stars are ~3 Gyr and the total ages are <4 Gyr. The combined mass of the binary
(1.66--1.84 M_solar) is well above the Chandrasekhar limit; however, the
timescale for coalescence is long.Comment: Accepted for the Astrophysical Journa
A Deep Proper Motion Catalog Within The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Footprint
A new proper motion catalog is presented, combining the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS) with second epoch observations in the r band within a portion of
the SDSS imaging footprint. The new observations were obtained with the 90prime
camera on the Steward Observatory Bok 90 inch telescope, and the Array Camera
on the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, 1.3 meter telescope. The
catalog covers 1098 square degrees to r = 22.0, an additional 1521 square
degrees to r = 20.9, plus a further 488 square degrees of lesser quality data.
Statistical errors in the proper motions range from 5 mas/year at the bright
end to 15 mas/year at the faint end, for a typical epoch difference of 6 years.
Systematic errors are estimated to be roughly 1 mas/year for the Array Camera
data, and as much as 2 - 4 mas/year for the 90prime data (though typically
less). The catalog also includes a second epoch of r band photometry.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journa
A New Microlensing Event in the Doubly-Imaged Quasar Q0957+561
We present evidence for ultraviolet/optical microlensing in the
gravitationally lensed quasar Q0957+561. We combine new measurements from our
optical monitoring campaign at the United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff
(USNO) with measurements from the literature and find that the
time-delay-corrected r-band flux ratio m_A - m_B has increased by ~0.1
magnitudes over a period of five years beginning in the fall of 2005. We apply
our Monte Carlo microlensing analysis procedure to the composite light curves,
obtaining a measurement of the optical accretion disk size, log
{(r_s/cm)[cos(i)/0.5]^{1/2}} = 16.2^{+0.5}_{-0.6}, that is consistent with the
quasar accretion disk size - black hole mass relation.Comment: Replaced with accepted version. Minor adjustments to text but
conclusions unchanged. Data in Table 2 have been updated and table now
includes additional observation
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