Acompanhamento da construção do edifício Focus Lx na Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar

Relatório de Estágio para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil na Área de Especialização de Edificações

Authenticity in assessment : reflecting undergraduate study and professional practice

The literature suggests that assessment is a powerful tool for influencing student study habits. It is also recognized that there is a tension between traditional forms of assessment and newer forms of assessment that offer a more authentic representation of practice, but are more complex and expensive to administer. The international trend in undergraduate engineering course accreditation to move to demonstration of attainment of graduate attributes poses new challenges in assessment of learning. A case study based on integrating assessment practices across the year levels of an engineering management studies stream in an undergraduate course is presented. Key features of the assessment portfolio include: the use of assessment in the first year as a foundational tool to establish student study habits and skills; the evolution of assessment tasks by the fourth year to reflect the world of professional practice and to allow students to demonstrate their integration of knowledge and skills; the weighting of assessment tasks to indicate the value attached to particular tasks; the structured inclusion of group work; a concern for student and staff workloads; the recognition of student diversity, in particular the needs of off-campus and mature-age students; and the matching of assessment tasks to professional accreditation requirements.

Case study research into Australian mechanical engineer attributes

The 1996 Johnson report on Australian engineering education recommended the development of a limited number of broadly defined attributes in engineering graduates as well as a broader based engineering
education. Within a year the Institution of Engineers, Australia responded by switching the focus of its engineering course accreditation to graduate attribute outcomes. It was to be the role of engineering school advisory panels to give greater definition to those attributes, but the scope of engineering is broad and the views of advisory panel members are largely influenced by their own often unique professional formation.
This paper presents a single discipline case study approach to identify the relative significance of a wide range of attributes required for the most common mechanical engineering roles in those industries that employ the greatest number of Australian mechanical engineers. Six industries were
identified that between them employ more than half of all Australian mechanical engineers, and most frequent or generic mechanical
engineering roles within those industries were studied.
Key findings of this research are then reviewed in the context of changing global engineering environment and educational practices.

Attributes for Australian mechanical engineers through proximal and distance education

The 1996 Johnson stakeholder review of Australian engineering education recommended the development of a number of broadly defined attributes in all engineering graduates. The Institution of Engineers, Australia (now Engineers Australia) responded swiftly by switching the focus of its engineering course accreditation requirements from course content to graduate attribute outcomes. To maximise the effectiveness of this approach to the mechanical engineering discipline a clear understanding of the relative significance of a more detailed range of attributes to Australian industry is essential, yet the scope of the mechanical engineering profession is broad and views of individual practitioners contributing to debate on attribute requirements are largely influenced by their own often unique professional formation. The research presented in this thesis is unique in using a role based analysis of the relative significance of an extensive range of attributes considered relevant to Australian mechanical engineers. The study covers the six industries found to employ the greatest number of Australian mechanical engineers. The significance of these attributes in the core mechanical engineering roles of each industry are weighted according to the numbers of mechanical engineers employed in those roles. These attribute significance profiles are considered in the context of a study of the formative development of the profession under the extensive influence of 19th and 20th century UK and US practices and recent momentous changes in engineering employment and formation. A wide range of appropriate teaching strategies to develop the most significant attributes through proximal and distance learning are explored and a brief account of the candidate’s work in developing and assessing the use of technology to enhance flexible learning in the field of engineering education is also included in this thesis. Whilst major areas of the mechanical engineers knowledge base are considered as part of the main study, further case study based research is presented to assess in more detail the knowledge base requirements for Australia’s best performing manufacturing industry by ‘industry value added’ - Food, Beverage and Pharmaceuticals and as such provides an indication of the relevance of the content base of Australian mechanical (as well as chemical and electrical) engineering degree programs to an Australian industry sector.

Life in PBL : two PBL teams

Problem-based learning (PBL) continues to challenge educational institutions in terms of demonstrating its effectiveness. Prior studies have offered insight into the methods, application, and experiences of teaching using PBL. However, student behaviours and the learning cultures that develop in PBL settings are also important. In this paper, we present the ways students of a first year engineering course at an Australian university approach PBL. A number of PBL teams in the same subject were observed throughout two semesters with their consent. This paper reports on two of these teams. Some observations were video taped to aid analysis. The purpose of this study was to analyse and compare learning approaches that help or hinder successful group outcomes. It is evident from the data that individuals in the groups have a strong influence on what is learnt. Some students also focus more on exploiting the assessment system than on maximising their learning.

An approach to assign individual marks from a team mark : the case of Australian grading system at universities

This study uses a new approach to assign individual marks from a team mark using individual contributions to a teamwork product. A team member’s contribution to a teamwork product, in the form of an individual weighting factor, is calculated using team members’ co‐assessment. A comparison of the proposed approach with existing methods has been discussed with the help of a typical teamwork example. The approach has been refined to make it applicable for the Australian grading system at universities. It has been implemented in a large undergraduate engineering course to observe its effectiveness in practice. The results show that the method encourages teamwork, penalises below‐average contributions and rewards above‐average contributions. An analysis of a students’ perception survey shows that students prefer the approach over alternative approaches.

Undergraduate electronics students' use of home experiment kits for distance education

Laboratory practicals form an essential component in any electronics or electrical engineering course. Many students choose to study engineering by means of distance education. Providing such students with effective and manageable practical experience has always been a significant challenge for those involved in providing distance education. Our university has employed an experimental electronics kit for teaching laboratory skills to distance-education students over the past several years. The chief limitation of the early kit was the inability to use it for performing AC experiments without an additional AC signal generator and an oscilloscope. We now supply distance-education students with the original components pack, and an additional “HELP” kit which contains the signal generator, PC-oscilloscope, a basic multimeter, logic probe, software and documentation. The combined kits allow these students to perform basic DC and AC electronics experiments at home in both freshman and sophomore electronics courses. A more recent development is introducing a small robot platform intended to enhance the student experience and interest in electronics and mechatronics, while still covering the basic skills necessary for the engineer-in-training. Distance-education students receive an updated experimental kit containing the robot, other equipment and components to allow them to complete a fuller suite of practical exercises in electronics in their first two years of study. Within this paper, we present these developments in our HELP kit and also make comparisons between on-campus and off-campus performance.

Vocabulário técnico e formação dos profissionais da área têxtil: necessidade, elaboração e avaliação de um dicionário de terminologia do vestuário

This research work deals with the compilation of a dictionary on clothing terminology intended to be used as a pedagogic tool as part of the teaching and learning process in the Textile Engineering Course at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. The main terms were selected and assessed by a team of textile teachers and students with the objective to be structured as a conceptual body of information on the following sub-areas of clothing terminology: materials (fabrics and trimmings) and products (garments). This research comprises three main steps: (a) characterization and understanding of the technical vocabulary in the clothing area as well as the identification of a pedagogic demand for a dictionary on clothing terminology, clearly expressed by the textile lecturers and students involved in the assessment of the need and validation of this project development; (b) a proposal for a specific methodology for the compilation of the dictionary which could help the communication process in the lecturing of clothing terminology and (c) based on the terminological principles and the technique of focal groups the dictionary was assessed. The technique of focal groups was used in the first step. In the second step the technique used was that of the terminological methodology adapted to the teaching approach in the Textile Course. In the third step the technique of focal groups was again utilized. It was observed that the main concern of lecturers and students is the lack of a standardized vocabulary, which renders difficult the communication process in both the teaching and learning activities as well as the professional ones in the textile industries. Various aspects, which can overlap, cause this lack of standardization. The main ones pointed out by the study team in the focal groups are: usage of regional words or expressions, usage of foreign words or expressions, analogies, and the low level of formal education, mainly among the industry workers. Another aspect to be considered is the lack of textile literature written in the Portuguese language of Brazil. This evidence shows the importance of a clothing terminology dictionary which will benefit both the education and professional activties in this field of knowledge. This dictionary will also give a substantial contribution to terminological standardization in our research field. With view to fulfill this demand, a dictionary of clothing terminology was compiled with 760 main entries, according to the modern practice in terminology with the necessary modifications concerning our needs. The result of the dictionary assessment was very assertive regarding its structure, contents and possible use in various contexts. The team work emphasized their contribution to the standardization process of the terms that proved to be one of the most important and difficult aspects of this researh work. The significance of this structured terminological dictionary was confirmed by the focal group participants relating to its use for teaching and learning activities, as a reference book, as a source of technical information and also as a tool for pedagogic studies and planning, as well as a significant collaboration to the pedagogic practices in the textile engineering course at University or any other educational institution. Besides, this dictionary can also be used to supply information within the textile field. We are aware that the present work will not exhaust the objectives of this research due to its limitations in opposition to the vast complexity demanded by the compilation of a complete work including all the areas and sub-areas of textile engineering. However, it is an important source for dissemination of concepts on the field of clothing terminology and a tool to effective standardization of the terms used in this subject field

Dificuldades na construção de gráficos de funções

This study describes about graduation s students difficulties of to draw functions graph. Specifically, we intend to observe their abilities evolution, as well as their difficulties during Calculus I subject in engineering course. For that, we show them publications about the elaboration of graphs and its difficulties in obstacle terms and some researches witch contain this subject and that it was done during postgraduate studies in mathematical education. It shows by research methodology aspects related to French didatic s mathematic and some theories of cognitive psychology considering the high value between theoretical-methodological relation that was evidenced in both theoretical conceptions about ways to understand and teach mathematic. This methodology is based on didactic engineering purpose, that consist in preliminaries analysis, conception and didactic sequence analysis prior, trials by application followed analysis up and conclusion. We had also used pedagogicals actions and analysis of results achieved, to classify types of errors made by the 2005 s students during second semester, from conceptions related to the episthemologic and didactics obstacles

The dimension of the pore space in sponges

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

An efficient methodological approach in the didatic of automation applied to integrated manufacturing

This work presents challenges and solutions for the teaching and learning of automation applied to integrated manufacturing by means of a methodological approach based on techniques, tools and industrial equipment directly applicable in the industry. The approach was implemented in a control and automation engineering course divided into expositive and laboratory classes. Since the success of the approach is mainly from the practical activities, the article focus more on activities developed in laboratory than theorical classes. Copyright © 2007 IFAC.

Environment for teaching and development of mobile robot systems

Using robots for teaching is one approach that has gathered good results on Middle-School, High-School and Universities. Robotics gives chance to experiment concepts of a broad range of disciplines, principally those from Engineering courses and Computer Science. However, there are not many kits that enables the use of robotics in classroom. This article describes the methodologies to implement tools which serves as test beds for the use of robotics to teach Computer Science and Engineering. Therefore, it proposes the development of a flexible, low cost hardware to integrate sensors and control actuators commonly found on mobile robots, the development of a mobile robot device whose sensors and actuators allows the experimentation of different concepts, and an environment for the implementation of control algorithms through a computer network. This paper describes each one of these tools and discusses the implementation issues and future works. © 2010 IEEE.

O ensino do conceito de integral, em sala de aula, com recursos da história da matemática e da resolução de problemas

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

O ensino do cálculo diferencial e integral na Escola Politécnica de São Paulo, no ano de 1904: uma análise documental

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

A percepção de docentes, discentes e egressos do curso de engenharia civil - campus de Bauru: sobre algumas questões curriculares

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC