Session S1B LOOK, NO TIMETABLE - Semantic Scholar

Session S1B LOOK, NO TIMETABLE Peter Spasov 1 Abstract - Sir Sandford Fleming College offers 3-year programs where the final semester is completely timetable free and problem based. This paper describes the launch and first year of Fleming’s Applied Projects program where computer and engineering technology students do full-term project work that is useful to an enterprise. The enterprise sponsor is one who provides the setting for a real-world problem to form the basis of the project. The program is also a cost saver. Unlike co-operative work placements or internships, an applied project makes extensive use of faculty mentors and advisors. Their role is to facilitate, guide, and evaluate the learning that is required for student’s area of study. The program itself is yearlong with three phases, which are establishing, planning, and executing, the latter being a full time semester with no formal timetable.

THE APPLIED PROJECTS PROGRAM Sir Sandford Fleming College, located in Peterborough Ontario Canada, offers 3-year diploma programs where the final semester is completely timetable free and problem based. The Centre of Applied Computing and Engineering Sciences offers a 3-year computer programmer analyst program and four 3-year engineering technologist programs; electronics engineering – information networks, electronics engineering – computer systems, electrical engineering, and electromechanical engineering (robotics). During the 19992000 academic year, we launched our applied projects program. The applied projects program is the final academic year for these 5 diploma programs where student teams work to solve a real-world problem, typically by an enterprise sponsor. Hence there is a partnership involving 3 groups.

College

Student Enterprise

Figure 1. Partners The basic structure of the applied projects program is: Establishing. Faculty mentors negotiate general project scope with potential sponsors during the summer months. During our first offering of the program we had 53 potential projects, 5 being strictly internal, 3 from other college areas,

1

and 45 by outside sponsors from private industry, and nonprofit sectors. Planning. Working with Business and Industry is a 3-hour a course that runs during the fall semester. Students form teams and choose a project. They determine requirements, define scope, schedule tasks, create a budget and create a communications plan. The course concludes with a presentation of the project plan to the sponsor. During our first offering we started with 89 students. We were able to proceed with 29 of the potential 53 projects. Executing. Applied Project is the official course name for an entire semester that runs during the winter. There are no scheduled classes, except for occasional optional workshops driven by student interest. Students work full time in implementing solutions, under mentor supervision, either at sponsor sites, college or their own homes. During the executing phase, students have no systemimposed timetable. From the academic administration viewpoint, they have a 40-hour block assigned to several dedicated rooms. Instead students work to a schedule that is determined in theory by their project plan and their communications plan in particular. In reality, the other significant factor is how events unfold for their specific projects. Also, we encounter learning requirements and/or interests that are common to groups of projects. In these cases, we find an expert, schedule a special workshop and inform all students of the option. Students may then choose to attend or not. For example, one expert ran a primer session about Allaire’s Cold Fusion software for dynamic web site authoring. Since there are no classes, tests, or assignments (other than specific deliverables as set a project), there is freedom to work preferred hours, work from home, and work around personal.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRAM The original curriculum for 3-year programs was a conventional 6-semester stream with each semester having typically 5 or 6 courses. The final (6th ) semester had highlevel courses including a capstone projects course. During the early 1990s there was discussion in the Centre of Applied Computing and Engineering Sciences (the centre) about enabling students to work on any 6th semester course during any time block. This would imply that each 6th semester professor be willing to handle queries about any

Applied Computing and Engineering Sciences, Sir Sandford Fleming College, Peterborough, ON L0A 1G0 Canada

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Session S1B course! We researched the concept of a case-driven semester. Our conclusions were that few models existed, learning outcomes from this approach are equivalent to those from conventional approaches, and our entire curriculum needed to reflect the culminating goal of a case/projectbased semester. [1]. The centre’s external advisory committee endorsed the concept and recommended that students work on real-world projects. During May and June 1998, a faculty team defined more explicitly the work to be done under the direction of a facilitator. Three speciality groups investigated current practices, logistics, and curriculum/learning outcomes. This resulted in a position posting for the co-ordinator. Figure 2 summarises the development that had subsequently occurred. Fall 1998 Dialogs with college, students Advisory Committee Consolidation Draft Structure

Spring/Summer Establishing Core Team Develop planning course

Winter 1999 Task force Policies and Initial Resources Enterprise Dialogs Outcomes mapping Fall 1999 Planning course Set up facilities Evaluation Discussions

Figure 2. Development Work Breakdown Structure The highlights are, Planning Course. Replace a 5th semester general elective with a mandatory course named Working with Business and Industry. Fact Finding. The co-ordinator visited enterprises for 1-on-1 dialogs. The purpose was to explore possibilities of sponsorship, understand enterprise operations, successes, challenges and needs.

Equiv. timetable hrs Student Faculty Ratio Room Use Supplies Establish in summer th Plan in 5 semester

Task force. The task force consisted of enterprise, students, and faculty. Its mandate was to receive information about and to advise the centre about planning, organising, implementing, and evaluating applied projects. In particular enterprise members stressed the importance of mentors. Later a group became a student management team whose role was to assist the co-ordinator with improving the applied projects program. Identity. Previous terms were case-driven, problembased, project and 6th semester. When our model developed into the three phases of establishing, planning and executing, we adopted the term Applied Projects @ Fleming. Because Applied Projects spans an entire year, it is in a sense a program, one in which other vocational programs feed into.

1999 Final Semester 45 18.7 (class time) 27 hours plus 2 rooms 1/6 of budget Not Applicable Elective Course

COSTS The program is cost effective despite additional time for establishing projects. Note that there was an investment in development time for the first offering. Figure 3 shows some figures concerning the cost. The 1999 Final Semester column shows costs associated with the final offering with a timetable. The 5 diploma programs shared some courses in common, which is why the equivalent timetable hours are 45, when each typical student was scheduled for 15 hours per week. The estimated equivalent timetable hours account for extra lab sections that would have been required. The student faculty ratio includes the co-ordinator time. In the conventional semester, 2 rooms were reserved for the advanced project course. Now these 2 plus 1 additional room are the only room requirements. The supplies requirement was higher in 2000 due to the need the purchase more equipment for dedicated use by student teams.

OTHER M ODELS AND PROGRAMS Traditional learning is subject based. Problem-based learning (PBL) is using a problem situation to drive the learning [2,3,4]. This is best illustrated by the following dialog: 2000 Applied Project Estimate 63 18.3, mentor & expert 3 rooms 1/5 of budget 1 Faculty Mandatory Course

Future Estimate 63 20.5, mentor & expert 3 rooms 1/6 of budget 0.8 Faculty Mandatory Course

Figure 3. Weekly Costs for the Applied Projects Program

0-7803-6424-4/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO 30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S1B-13

Session S1B Professor Case asks: “Here’s a toaster that isn’t working, fix it! or better still, improve it.” Professor English begins: “Today we are going to study the flow of electricity through metals, then we’ll look at …” [2, p2-1] Various engineering schools have implemented capstone design or project courses or programs, internships or co-operative education programs. Harvey Mudd College runs a compulsory Engineering Clinic where students solve a problem for a real client. [5,6] It spans 2 semesters but students also take other courses during these semesters. The Queens University TEAM program provides an option which student may choose to solve a problem for a real client. Student teams use a course primarily for planning. In the following semester, they execute the project while also taking other courses. Industry volunteers provide supervision. Some institutions use faculty-created projects that are industrially realistic [3,7,8,9,10]. These types of projects are easier to control because students or student teams all work with the same project scenario. The project scenarios are customised so those students must master a certain set of outcomes. During a 3-year program the student progresses from to more independent self-directed learning. There is tendency to use more team-based projects in the advanced courses. Although not as formalised, it is similar to the model used by Aalborg Universitet in Denmark where students consistently proceed through steps of emphasising project work over course work during each semester [9]. The program differs from co-operative, field placement, and internship programs in a number of ways. In these programs, the goal is real-world experience, which may or may not include advanced technical skills. Often work is mainly operational. The placement supervisor monitors students like they would an employee. Faculty monitoring may simply be reading a report, interviewing the employer or occasional short visits. Student assessment typically concerns generic work ethic such as punctuality, performance reliability, safety consciousness, and so on. An applied project makes extensive use of faculty mentors and advisors for direct monitoring, technical advice, and assistance with project management. Their role is to facilitate, guide, and evaluate the learning that is required for the student’s area of study  in the context of the student’s project role. For example, a mentor advises a student about the hazardous area classification when designing measurement electronics to be used in a mining environment. The projects are typically back burner. Most importantly the projects provide realistic context to learning. Projects can involve a combination of information/database, simulation, network, network security, Internet/intranet/e-commerce, electrical, electronic, robotic, control, and automation systems. Students can design, test, and evaluate a mock up of a system that enterprise is planning to commission. In some cases, they also undertake some operational activities in

order to improve processes and documentation systems. For example, one project is development of a replacement for a parts carousal system which operators use for placing components on circuit boards. The system includes a computer, parts insertion/retrieval software, carousel interfaces, and software interfaces to the sponsor’s inventory systems.

PREPARATION AND OUTCOME M APPING The Centre of Applied Computing and Engineering Sciences (ACES) offers the five 3-year diploma programs (6 semesters) mentioned previously mentioned and six 2-year diploma programs (4 semesters), technician and engineering technician. The first 2 semesters are predominately common for all programs. Semesters 3, 4, and 5 are grouped into 2 clusters, Computing Science and Engineering Science.

Technical Communications Preparing for Today’s Technology Careers Teams in the Workplace Computing Engineering Science Science Managing Tech Engineering Systems Projects Management Working with Business and Industry Applied Project (Full time semester) Figure 4: Curriculum Highlights With Respect to Applied Projects Fortunately, the centre had already adopted the integration of general education components to emphasise communications and teamwork skills. To be frank, the general courses are sometimes unpopular with technology students. But there is big pay off in Applied Projects because we have not experienced many teamwork issues. Literatures describing other project programs have usually identified teamwork as a crucial element [11,12,13]. The centre also recognised the importance of following a staged self-directed learning model for the preparation semesters [14] as shown in figure 5. To prepare students for this new venture, the centre refined its curriculum. The Computing Science cluster introduced a project management course and the Engineering Science cluster introduced an engineering systems management course. The Ministry of Education and Training in the province of Ontario has published accreditation standards for college programs. These standards expresses the vocational and generic components in terms of learning outcomes with suggested elements of performance. For example, a learning outcome for electrical engineering technology is design, analyse, and troubleshoot a variety of control systems. The

0-7803-6424-4/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO 30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S1B-14

Session S1B standards also list elements of performance to suggest the quality of performance necessary to meet the outcome. For example, an element of performance is Apply, install, test, and troubleshoot PLC systems. In order to identify which outcomes if any needed to be covered, the centre conducted a major survey of all courses, including those yet to be developed! The results indicated that every outcome in every program was covered in some way prior to the 6th semester applied project. Student 1 Dependent

Teacher Authority

Attribute Information

2 Interested

Motivator

3 Involved

Facilitator

4 SelfDirected

Consultant

+ Discussion + Small Projects More Autonomy

Figure 5: Staged Self-Directed Learning

ABOUT ESTABLISHING The first phase in Applied Projects is establishing projects. Faculty takes the key role in this process. During the spring, the college invites enterprise. We do this by sending out an invitation for potential project sponsorship. It briefly describes the program, lays out the establishing process, lists student skills, lists projects already completed and/or underway, and a template request for proposal (RFP). The RFP has three parts, Project Statement: In a paragraph, describe a problem to solve, and/or product and/or service to prototype. Project Scope: Indicate the solution report, products and/or services to be provided. Scope Planning: Describe the justification, major deliverables and project objectives. Include any propositions about ownership and resource requirements if known. In some cases, we discuss the interest, draft an RFP on the potential sponsor’s behalf, send it back, and confirm whether the draft captures what the potential sponsor is requesting, and revise if necessary. The next step is to respond to the request. We interview the potential sponsor, either by an onsite visit or by telephone. This interview covers terms of reference such as available resources, where students can work, preferred number of students, intellectual property rights, confidentiality, and safety issues. We then write a formal proposal that basically describes how we see students undertaking the project. The proposal covers RFP items plus communications and contacts, student team characteristics, enterprise benefits, learning opportunities, costs and expenses, facilities and use of,

safety requirements, confidentiality and intellectual property, and other items if applicable. We then send a proposal package that includes a cover letter, the formal proposal itself, copy of the RFP, 2 copies of a letter of intent to be signed, and copies of some standard forms. These standard forms are a work placement agreement for accident insurance coverage (covered by our provincial government), indemnification form for liability insurance (covered by the college) and guidelines concerning intellectual property rights. Concerning our recommendations about student teams, we state the number and type of students by program of study while trying to as flexible as possible. For example, we received an RFP from a company specialising in mining laboratory services. The RFP described a desire to commercialise a prototype of a new level measurement system. In this case we recommended 2 or 3 students from any of 4 of the programs plus 1 additional student that had to come from 2 of the programs. Since we were attempting this program for the first time, our fear was that we wouldn’t have enough sponsors. We believe that a thorough process by faculty was instrumental in achieving more potential projects than anticipated. Our potential sponsors included private companies and non-profit organisations. A challenge is to find a balance between streamlining the process and maintaining its advantages.

ABOUT PLANNING The second phase in Applied Projects is planning. Now students enter the picture. During the 5th semester, there is a mandatory course, Working with Business and Industry, that is scheduled as three 1-hour blocks each week. The course assists students in forming their teams, selecting a project, understanding the project and finally delivering a project plan to the sponsor. The first part is team and project selection. We post a list information from the RFPs and proposals for students to examine. In particular, each potential project lists the recommended team membership by programs of study. There are four principles, 1: Sponsors must know which and whether a team is assigned to their project within the first three weeks. 2: The sponsor project requirement determines the type of students (by program) required for their project. 3: As much as possible, students will determine their team and project. 4: The course faculty will manage this process in an efficient and equitable manner. After the 3 weeks, all students were assigned to specific teams, projects, and mentors. Then we informed potential sponsors whether they had a team or not. However, we need to improve how this stressful period was handled. We were

0-7803-6424-4/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO 30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S1B-15

Session S1B Select Project and Team

Prepare (Sponsor Prepare (Self) and Research) Requirements Individual Project Preferences Enterprise Requirements Detailed Proposal Team/Project Preferences Enterprise Issues Paper Project Plan Final Team Contract Site Visit completed Project Plan Presentation Mandatory Health and Safety Certification Figure 6. Simplified Work Breakdown Structure for Planning Phase adding selection rationale requirements during the process. For the next round, the selection rationale will be mandatory for all and up front. Also we will post potential projects for students to review during the late summer. This will provide the ambitious more time to plan ahead. During the rest of the course, student teams worked with their mentors to create a team contract, determine project requirements in more detail, conduct a site visit, and learn about basic business operations. They had to develop a scope statement, undergo general health and safety certification, verify project scope, review planning in progress, and finally deliver and present their project plan. The project plan contained a work breakdown structure scope management, a Gantt chart for time management, a cost/budget estimate, human resource plan, communications plan, and risk management plan. An oversight was the exclusion of physical resource requirements. We can probably attribute some of execution logistics problems to this oversight. There are other refinements we intend to make such as tightening of sponsor and mentor sign off during plan development, inclusion of more business issues, better counselling concerning ambiguity of real-world problems, and some scheduling logistics.

ABOUT EXECUTION In theory, students should hit the ground running due to the previous planning activities. Due to inexperience, both students and ours, we hit a few snags. In some cases, students hit a procurement problem, 15-week delivery in one case! Some sponsors change their minds or their personnel changed. Misunderstanding of requirements occurred in some situations. For example, a project that apparently involved electronic redesign to use alternative components turned out to be data entry operations. All parties worked out a win/win solution, part of which involved creating an internal robotics project on the fly. Initial difficulties with computing facilities caused some delays. With real-world projects, ambiguity is possible from what a sponsor thinks they need to what a student team thinks it needs to do. In all cases, solutions were found and we continued on, and being wiser for it. The team works full-time on their project. The process includes an evaluation guide to ensure that each student meets his or her learning outcomes. As determined by their

project communication plan, they also meet regularly for informal meetings with their mentor, as well as a couple of formal technical reviews or walkthroughs. We also ran a few workshops based on student interest or requirements that span several projects. For example, one session covered printed circuit board layout design and steps for fabrication. Most projects required that students use college facilities to develop the system with later deployment of the system at the sponsor site. For many computer projects, students set up mini LANs to mirror the sponsor systems. Some commented they learned more in this semester than the previous 5. Most enjoyed diving into real-world projects. They discuss issues with faculty and amongst themselves such as merits of some standards to remotely access a specific database. Another team determines how to parse the text data in a file describing the layout of a printed circuit board, and how to design the serial interface. Another team discovers security holes in a sponsor’s network, and cracks encrypted data to find identities of illegal users. The final grade for each student will be percentage. On a coarse granularity level there is consistent evaluation across the different projects as shown in Figure 7. Most of these marks are based on individual performance. Project and Individual tasks were an evaluation of the products or services: fabrication, development, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of system(s). Communication/Team skills included decision making according to team’s norms, facilitation, meeting contributions, listening, written and spoken skills, and use of feedback. Technical skills is an evaluation of each student’s demonstration of what they have learned and achieved. An area of further development is how to consistently articulate a finer grained evaluation breakdown. Each student kept an individual logbook that was submitted regularly for review by the mentor. Generally these logs summarised items such as tasks completed in a reporting period, and tasks to be completed in the next reporting period, as well as technical discussions. Each team submitted a team logbook, and typically included minutes of team meetings, status of milestones, percent of project complete, problems, concerns, and possible solutions.

0-7803-6424-4/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO 30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S1B-16

Session S1B

Individual (80%)

Team (20%)

Project and Individual Tasks (60%) Individual Log Progress Report(s) and Review(s) Team Log

Communication/Team Skills (20%) Performance - Oral Performance - Written Final Report & Presentation Final Report & Presentation

Technical Skills (20%) Skills Identification Walkthroughs or Reports Final Report & Presentation Final Report & Presentation

Figure 7. Basic Outline of Evaluation Assessment also included identification of vocational learning outcomes that contributes to the student’s diploma requirements. In addition, there were formalised reviews during which students presented work in progress and were subjected to probing questions by the mentor. Each team was required to submit a final report with contributions by each individual. In some cases, students invested major effort such as binding and colour printing for the purposes of developing a career portfolio. Celebration is an important part of any education. During Presentations Day, in the final week, teams formally presented to sponsors and faculty. Projects Day followed Presentations Day. Students displayed their work to the general public, the press, prospective future students, and specially invited guests from business and industry, a few being prospective employers. Some commented on the format being more effective than job interviews for scouting potential employees.

SUMMARY This project experience permits students to drive their own learning within their outcome. Some features that differentiate Applied Projects from conventional courses and other work experience or project educational models are, • • • • • • • •

No Timetable, no formal classes Full-time project is the driving force Interdisciplinary team-based problem solving Content seminars by instructors or experts as required Students learn just in time to solve a real world problem Improved learning because the learning will occur in context to a realistic need Specific implementations are not defined although general framework can be applied for repeated offerings Learning can be fun

[3]. Maskell, D.L., Grabou, P.J., “A Multidisciplinary Cooperative Problem-Based Learning Approach to Embedded Systems Design”, IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol 41, No. 2, May 1998 [4]. Weimer, M., “Problem-Based Learning Models”, The Teaching Professor, January 1997 [5]. Gilkeson, M., Sant’Anna, J.A., “Administration of University Programs Involving Joint Action of University and Enterprises”, VII Pan American Congress on Engineering Education, October, 1976 [6]. Harvey Mudd College. Clinic News 4.1, Spring 1996 [7]. Goodhead, T.C., “The Integrated Group Project with the M. Eng Degree at the University of Warwick”, Alternative Approaches Teaching Engineering, Vol. I, September 1994 [8]. Ponsen, J.M., Kals, H.J.J. “Design and Manufacturing in a Project Oriented Curriculum” Manufacturing Education for the 21st Century, October 1998 [9]. Hansen, P.H.K., “Continuous Improvements in a Project Based Learning Context”, Manufacturing Education for the 21st Century, October 1998 [10]. Eversman, W. “A Capstone Design Experience in Aerosapce Engineering”, ASEE Midwest Section Conference, THOSE WHO CAN, TEACH, April 10-12, 1996, Tulsa, Oklahoma [11]. Smith, K.A., “Cooperative Learning: Effective Teamwork for Engineering Classrooms” IEEE Education Society, Newsletter, April 1995 [12]. Bond, B. “The Difficult Part of Capstone Design Courses”, ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education 95 Conference, November 1995 [13]. Blumenfeld, P.C., Soloway, E., Marx, R.W., Krajcik, J.S., Guzdial, M. Palinscar, A., “Motivating Project -Based Learning: Sustaining the Doing, Supporting the Learning”, Educational Psychologist, 26(3&4), 369-398, copyright 1991, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 [14]. Grow, Gerald O.,. "Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed." Adult Education Quarterly, 41 (3), 125-149, (1991/1996)

REFERENCES [1]. Harries, L., Payne P., “Final Report on Case-Driven Semester AD&D Project”, Internal Report, October 24, 1997, pp. 1

[2]. Woods, D.R., “Problem-based Learning: How to Gain the Most from PBL”, pub. Donald R. Woods, McMaster University Bookstore, 1994

0-7803-6424-4/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO 30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S1B-17