title: Fostering project management competencies in undergraduate engineering: An exploration of the use of management- educated tutors as coaches in problem-based learning

authors: Khoo, Elaine G.L.

subjects: Interdisciplinary study

abstract: CONTEXT
Problem-based learning (PBL) helps engineering graduates develop the competencies needed in order to engage effectively with complex and uncertain workplace demands. PBL’s effectiveness, however, also depends on students having the ability to manage themselves and to work collaboratively. As these professional competencies are not typically the focus of undergraduate engineering programmes, students tend to complete problem-based project work through their own initiatives without the skills relevant to project completion. On the other hand, project management competencies are commonly explicated and core in business and management disciplines.
PURPOSE
This paper reports on our project which addresses the research question: What is the impact of utilising a management-educated demonstrator to work with engineering students on their learning and development of project management competencies?
APPROACH
Our project intervention required students in a fourth-year advanced engineering problem-based course to regularly report their planning and project progress to a graduate management tutor (demonstrator manager). A third of the course marks was awarded by the tutor who provided business-informed coaching as feedback during each report planning session. Multiple forms of data were collected – pre-and post-course surveys, student focus group interviews, lecturer and tutor interviews and student formative and summative grades.
RESULTS
The findings highlighted that:
(1) Students did gain a better understanding of key aspects of project management;
(2) Students were generally supportive of the technique, but wanted more “introduction”, exposing their naivete where grading on management was concerned;
(3) The approach could foster more Engineering-Management collaboration at a university;
(4) The approach supports the accreditation goal of developing engineering graduates’ professional competencies related to management skills.
CONCLUSIONS
Given the multiple and complex challenges facing 21st-century society, engineering employers are increasingly seeking graduates who are both technical experts in their field and able to work with experts from other fields, including business and management. Our project contributes understandings on how interdisciplinary initiatives can develop such professional competencies that are important for engineering graduate work-readiness.

text: Fostering project management competencies in undergraduate engineering: An exploration of the use of management- educated tutors as coaches in problem-based learning CONTEXT
Problem-based learning (PBL) helps engineering graduates develop the competencies needed in order to engage effectively with complex and uncertain workplace demands. PBL’s effectiveness, however, also depends on students having the ability to manage themselves and to work collaboratively. As these professional competencies are not typically the focus of undergraduate engineering programmes, students tend to complete problem-based project work through their own initiatives without the skills relevant to project completion. On the other hand, project management competencies are commonly explicated and core in business and management disciplines.
PURPOSE
This paper reports on our project which addresses the research question: What is the impact of utilising a management-educated demonstrator to work with engineering students on their learning and development of project management competencies?
APPROACH
Our project intervention required students in a fourth-year advanced engineering problem-based course to regularly report their planning and project progress to a graduate management tutor (demonstrator manager). A third of the course marks was awarded by the tutor who provided business-informed coaching as feedback during each report planning session. Multiple forms of data were collected – pre-and post-course surveys, student focus group interviews, lecturer and tutor interviews and student formative and summative grades.
RESULTS
The findings highlighted that:
(1) Students did gain a better understanding of key aspects of project management;
(2) Students were generally supportive of the technique, but wanted more “introduction”, exposing their naivete where grading on management was concerned;
(3) The approach could foster more Engineering-Management collaboration at a university;
(4) The approach supports the accreditation goal of developing engineering graduates’ professional competencies related to management skills.
CONCLUSIONS
Given the multiple and complex challenges facing 21st-century society, engineering employers are increasingly seeking graduates who are both technical experts in their field and able to work with experts from other fields, including business and management. Our project contributes understandings on how interdisciplinary initiatives can develop such professional competencies that are important for engineering graduate work-readiness.

year: 2018

title: A review of recent developments in natural fibre composites and their mechanical performance

authors: Pickering, Kim L.

subjects: B. Mechanical properties

abstract: Recently, there has been a rapid growth in research and innovation in the natural fibre composite (NFC) area. Interest is warranted due to the advantages of these materials compared to others, such as synthetic fibre composites, including low environmental impact and low cost and support their potential across a wide range of applications. Much effort has gone into increasing their mechanical performance to extend the capabilities and applications of this group of materials. This review aims to provide an overview of the factors that affect the mechanical performance of NFCs and details achievements made with them.

text: A review of recent developments in natural fibre composites and their mechanical performance Recently, there has been a rapid growth in research and innovation in the natural fibre composite (NFC) area. Interest is warranted due to the advantages of these materials compared to others, such as synthetic fibre composites, including low environmental impact and low cost and support their potential across a wide range of applications. Much effort has gone into increasing their mechanical performance to extend the capabilities and applications of this group of materials. This review aims to provide an overview of the factors that affect the mechanical performance of NFCs and details achievements made with them.

year: 2015-01-01

title: Echoed silencing in Te Whare/Tangata

authors: Lewis, Cassandra Louise Terauhina

subjects: Mana Wāhine

abstract: Wāhine Māori voices are suppressed due to multiple intersecting factors in Aotearoa which negatively impact our lived realities. The aim of this thesis is to foreground wāhine voice and identity within a settler colonial housing system. The current ‘housing crisis’ has been an issue of interest in academia focusing on housing insecurity, homelessness and neoliberalism. Additionally, the criminalisation of Māori has been explored by scholars to a similar extent, especially the pipelining of Māori into incarceration and precarity through policing and surveillance strategies. However, how the criminal justice system and the housing systems interact is scarcely investigated in Aotearoa, and moreover, has not been examined through a Mana wāhine theoretical framework. Mana Wāhine scholars have long critiqued colonisation and the accompanying practices, ideologies and discourses of difference that misrepresent wāhine as the ‘savage other’. How wāhine Māori are constructed through political discourse and factors leading to the silencing of wāhine are at the forefront of this inquiry and moreover, wāhine resistance, survival and aspirations while navigating a discriminatory housing system is examined.

Political and Western discourse contributes to the criminalisation and deficit framing of wāhine as the ‘undeserving poor’ and ‘criminal other’ which subsequently silences wāhine and encourages discriminatory practices. This thesis contends that the channelling of wāhine Māori into a precarious population, the criminalisation of wāhine Māori, and the colonial discourses surrounding wāhine interact together and create barriers to wāhine Māori access to housing. An analysis of housing discourse, alongside wāhine perspectives provides a counter-narrative of the lived reality and voice from wāhine who reside in a predominantly precarious and Māori populated area. The findings show cases of surveillance, discrimination, social policing and steering wāhine Māori into unhealthy living conditions, however, wāhine were also creative in their practices of resistance and survivance.

text: Echoed silencing in Te Whare/Tangata Wāhine Māori voices are suppressed due to multiple intersecting factors in Aotearoa which negatively impact our lived realities. The aim of this thesis is to foreground wāhine voice and identity within a settler colonial housing system. The current ‘housing crisis’ has been an issue of interest in academia focusing on housing insecurity, homelessness and neoliberalism. Additionally, the criminalisation of Māori has been explored by scholars to a similar extent, especially the pipelining of Māori into incarceration and precarity through policing and surveillance strategies. However, how the criminal justice system and the housing systems interact is scarcely investigated in Aotearoa, and moreover, has not been examined through a Mana wāhine theoretical framework. Mana Wāhine scholars have long critiqued colonisation and the accompanying practices, ideologies and discourses of difference that misrepresent wāhine as the ‘savage other’. How wāhine Māori are constructed through political discourse and factors leading to the silencing of wāhine are at the forefront of this inquiry and moreover, wāhine resistance, survival and aspirations while navigating a discriminatory housing system is examined.

Political and Western discourse contributes to the criminalisation and deficit framing of wāhine as the ‘undeserving poor’ and ‘criminal other’ which subsequently silences wāhine and encourages discriminatory practices. This thesis contends that the channelling of wāhine Māori into a precarious population, the criminalisation of wāhine Māori, and the colonial discourses surrounding wāhine interact together and create barriers to wāhine Māori access to housing. An analysis of housing discourse, alongside wāhine perspectives provides a counter-narrative of the lived reality and voice from wāhine who reside in a predominantly precarious and Māori populated area. The findings show cases of surveillance, discrimination, social policing and steering wāhine Māori into unhealthy living conditions, however, wāhine were also creative in their practices of resistance and survivance.

year: 2021