Project-oriented Courses Research Articles

Flipping the Script on Project Management Practices in Education: Outcomes of Applying Agile Development Methodologies in a Classroom Setting

In this paper, an application of Agile Devel-opment Methodologies (ADM) to university project ori-ented courses is presented. A multidisciplinary student team applies Waterfall and Agile (Scrum) project man-agement strategies over a period of 10 months to a pro-ject based capstone course. The study primarily focuses on evaluating the two methodologies across five catego-ries – student confidence, student awareness, stakeholder confidence, stakeholder awareness, and project success. Results suggest that overall Agile can be more effective than Waterfall. Due to practices such as daily standups and frequent sprint planning, the student team and stake-holders found they were not only able to stay up to date with the progress of the overall project but also found there was enough time allocated to address the ever-changing nature of requirements brought on by the pro-ject. The lessons learned and recommendations provided in this study are generalized such that they can be applied in other project based courses as well.

Integration of bioinformatics into an undergraduate biology curriculum and the impact on development of mathematical skills

The development of fields such as bioinformatics and genomics has created new challenges and opportunities for undergraduate biology curricula. Students preparing for careers in science, technology, and medicine need more intensive study of bioinformatics and more sophisticated training in the mathematics on which this field is based. In this study, we deliberately integrated bioinformatics instruction at multiple course levels into an existing biology curriculum. Students in an introductory biology course, intermediate lab courses, and advanced project-oriented courses all participated in new course components designed to sequentially introduce bioinformatics skills and knowledge, as well as computational approaches that are common to many bioinformatics applications. In each course, bioinformatics learning was embedded in an existing disciplinary instructional sequence, as opposed to having a single course where all bioinformatics learning occurs. We designed direct and indirect assessment tools to follow student progress through the course sequence. Our data show significant gains in both student confidence and ability in bioinformatics during individual courses and as course level increases. Despite evidence of substantial student learning in both bioinformatics and mathematics, students were skeptical about the link between learning bioinformatics and learning mathematics. While our approach resulted in substantial learning gains, student "buy-in" and engagement might be better in longer project-based activities that demand application of skills to research problems. Nevertheless, in situations where a concentrated focus on project-oriented bioinformatics is not possible or desirable, our approach of integrating multiple smaller components into an existing curriculum provides an alternative.

Towards designing cognitively-enriched project-oriented courses within a blended problem-based learning context

Traditional education seems to gradually and moderately make way for self-directed and student-centred learning strategies that will efficiently enable students to reach their full potentials and w...

On the “Work-Study Combination” mode, the Television Animation teaching reform based on project-oriented

Our animation design and production of professional reference from 2008 Korean animation success of vocational education institutions. Flash in earlier time did not do well in video manipulation. And try to take the school-enterprise cooperation business certification curriculum. In 2009 we joined Adobe Digital Arts Center, the introduction of relevant skills courses. Learn Korean animation school-enterprise cooperation of vocational education institutions work and study in the teaching mode, I was animation design and production professionals in accordance with the requirements of the school gradually adjusted from 08 to develop training objectives and teaching plans, a substantial transformation of the curriculum system, all of the professional basic courses and specialized courses trunk capacity requirements in accordance with job categories combined. We continue to improve research in the content, improve the TV movie based on project-oriented courses in engineering combined with reform of the teaching model for animation Vocational Training Program provides an important reference.

Design of PM Motor Drive Course and DSP Based Robot Traction System Laboratory

This paper presents a part of North Africa/Europe collaboration results in education to develop project-oriented courses in power electronics and motor drive field. The course aims to teach Permanent Magnet motor drives close to a real world project of significant size and depth so as to be motivational, namely mobile robot project. Particular skills, student will acquire, are those relative to the detailed design and implementation of PM motor controllers in DSP based rapid prototyping environment. Simulation work is completed using graphical modeling tools in Simulink/Plecs, while real-time implementation is achieved by means of eZdspF2812 board and Simulink/TI C2000 Embedded Target tools. This flexible development environment fit the robot traction system very well and provides exactly the functionality necessary for an efficient PM motor drives teaching as demonstrated by a set of simulation and experiments.

Extreme Programming: The Student View

Students in two offerings of a software engineering course were asked to write opinion papers regarding the use of Extreme Programming (XP) in an undergraduate computer science curriculum. The majority opposed the use of XP as the preferred life-cycle model for the project in that course, but they did support introducing some of the practices of XP in selected courses. They felt that unit testing and coding standards should become part of the introductory programming courses, but other practices should be deferred to specific project-oriented courses, or not introduced at all. Two pilot studies provided additional insights that are consistent with the students' opinions.

Teaching software engineering early

In the fall of 1994, we reorganized the content of our three-course computer science introductory sequence in order to introduce software engineering concepts early and provide a consistent software engineering focus from one course to the next. We also established documentation and design standards that would serve as a framework for teaching the software engineering principles and techniques that we considered appropriate and essential to novice software developers. In an attempt to assess the impact of this new teaching process, we compared the performances in upper-level project-oriented courses of students who had been exposed to the new introductory sequence to those of students who had not.This paper describes the documentation and design standards established in 1994, their evolution over the past four years, and how these standards can be used as a framework for teaching software engineering concepts early in the curriculum. It also reports on what we have learned through tracking our students. We found that, in three upper-level courses, project grades for students exposed to software engineering concepts early averaged as much as half a letter grade higher than those of other students.

The Case for Project-Oriented Courses with "Educationally Useful" Student Design Projects

In looking for "real life" undergraduate student design projects engineering educators may overlook projects which have a "real life" educational purpose within the University. Such "educationally useful" projects can provide the stimulus for very motivating student design experiences. In this paper the concept of "educationally useful" student design projects is formulated and three examples are included to illustrate this concept. The goal of this paper is to illustrate through these examples how the academic environment can provide the stimulus for excellent "real life" student design projects. The advantages of these projects to the student and to the educational process are described.

Fasp a Student Developed Application Program

The results of an experiment to test suitability of development of large-scale computer programs as an electrical engineering student project are presented. Fasp, a user-oriented application program for analysis of signal flow graphs, was developed by a team consisting of a senior, two sophomores, and two freshmen. The senior was able to do most of the program design and coordination. The program, consisting of about 3500 ANSI Fortran statements, was developed in one semester and was tested over the summer on a CDC 1604, a Univac 1108, and an IBM 360/50. The results show that such a software project can be used to extend the benefits of project-oriented courses to an earlier point in the engineering curriculum.