Building Shared Instructor and Peer Support for Students Projects

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Thursday, 21 July 2005
This presentation is part of 4: Poster Session
Building Shared Instructor and Peer Support for Students Projects

Description: The presentation describes how WebCT was used to motivate and instruct engineering students working on degree projects. In one course, engineering students from different companies collaborated to solve problems. The course included a discussion room, calendar, common area with a weekly report on progress, working papers, debates, and final reports. Collaborative efforts and the exploration of different subjects resulted in improved project quality and better time management.
Presentation Format: Poster
Topic: Measuring outcomes: Student achievement and course success
Target Audience: Course Designers, E-learning Managers, Faculty and Other Instructors
Appropriate Audience Level: Beginning or new users of WebCT, Experienced WebCT users
WebCT Version: WebCT Campus Edition
Abstract Text: The students at the University College of Boras, School of Engineering must make a Projects Degree report during the last year of their education. Each student work together with a different company to solve or help to solve a problem within this company during a period of 10 weeks. Usually this has been a work on individual basis without cooperation between students in different companies. This could sometimes lead to students' loss of connection to our School and loss of group identity.
This project started with the following questions:
How can the instructor follow-up and give feedback to students during their Project Degree work in a better way? How to help the students to write Project Degree report and improve its content? How influence students to finish their Projects Degree report in due time?
The target group was students in the last year of their education at University College of Boras, School of Engineering, Computer Engineering Program.
The purpose of the project was to improve Project Degree reports, follow-up the students work in different companies, increase the number of reports finished in due time and develop and encourage social interaction and cooperation.
After discussions with students the following method was suggested -Web based education tool (WebCT) -Discussion room -Calendar with possibility to make “public” statements, book meetings and announce important common activities as fairs, exhibitions, etc. -Common area with weekly report on progress, working papers, opposition and final report
Through the transparency in a common course the result was that the students increased their knowledge, became more dedicated, got continuous and improved feed-back from the instructor and most of all improved quality of the Projects Degree reports.

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Description:	The presentation describes how WebCT was used to motivate and instruct engineering students working on degree projects. In one course, engineering students from different companies collaborated to solve problems. The course included a discussion room, calendar, common area with a weekly report on progress, working papers, debates, and final reports. Collaborative efforts and the exploration of different subjects resulted in improved project quality and better time management.
Presentation Format:	Poster
Topic:	Measuring outcomes: Student achievement and course success
Target Audience:	Course Designers, E-learning Managers, Faculty and Other Instructors
Appropriate Audience Level:	Beginning or new users of WebCT, Experienced WebCT users
WebCT Version:	WebCT Campus Edition
Abstract Text:	The students at the University College of Boras, School of Engineering must make a Projects Degree report during the last year of their education. Each student work together with a different company to solve or help to solve a problem within this company during a period of 10 weeks. Usually this has been a work on individual basis without cooperation between students in different companies. This could sometimes lead to students' loss of connection to our School and loss of group identity. This project started with the following questions: How can the instructor follow-up and give feedback to students during their Project Degree work in a better way? How to help the students to write Project Degree report and improve its content? How influence students to finish their Projects Degree report in due time? The target group was students in the last year of their education at University College of Boras, School of Engineering, Computer Engineering Program. The purpose of the project was to improve Project Degree reports, follow-up the students work in different companies, increase the number of reports finished in due time and develop and encourage social interaction and cooperation. After discussions with students the following method was suggested -Web based education tool (WebCT) -Discussion room -Calendar with possibility to make “public” statements, book meetings and announce important common activities as fairs, exhibitions, etc. -Common area with weekly report on progress, working papers, opposition and final report Through the transparency in a common course the result was that the students increased their knowledge, became more dedicated, got continuous and improved feed-back from the instructor and most of all improved quality of the Projects Degree reports.