AC 2009-2409: PREPARATION AND REFLECTION: MAKING PROFESSIONALPRACTICE EXPLICITPrue Howard, Central Queensland University Dr Prue Howard is a senior lecturer and Convenor of the Future Engineering Education Directions (FEED) research and scholarship group at CQUniversity. She has BEng (Mech), ME in Dynamics and a Professional Doctorate in Transdiciplinary Studies. She moved to the higher education sector in 1990 after a career as a mechanical designer in industry. A love of teaching has kept her there since. Prue has received National Awards in the areas of Women in Engineering and Curriculum Innovation, as well as having received the University's Vice-Chancellor's Award for Quality Teaching
portion of the student’s college or universitycareer and allowing the progression in complexity of both the academic studies and the workexperiences is fundamental to cooperative education6. Employer and student performanceevaluation data have traditionally been used to reflect on and improve student or employerperformance in an informal way. An emphasis has been placed on developing evaluation criteriathrough learning outcomes that meet the needs of the cooperative education programs and theAccreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) or the Canadian EngineeringAccreditation Board (CEAB).Research on cooperative education and engineering students has shown a positive impact onearnings and grade point averages at the cost of extended
complete increasingly more difficult assignments with lesssupervision. The experts in the field model the characteristics of an engineer in industry,not the characteristics of an engineering professor, so the student can observe and attemptto mimic these behaviors until she gains mastery. Because the co-op student is still astudent and not a full-fledged engineer, she has more flexibility to experiment withdifferent methodologies to accomplish tasks, and through reflection she can construct theknowledge of what works and what does not. Through this experience she understandsand builds a framework about what it takes to be successful.Significantly, however, current research suggests that the experiential learning providedin a co-op experience is
Work Experience: Factoring in Pre-work Academic Performance. Journal of Engineering Education (April) 97(2): 207-212.12. Van Gyn, G. (1995). Reflective Practice: The Needs of Professions and the Promise of Cooperative Education. The Journal of Cooperative Education 31(2-3): 103-131.Acknowledgement: The authors wish to acknowledge Ms. Maxine Sugarman, Director, of theuniversity’s Cooperative Education and Career Services and her staff for the provision ofprogram data. Page 14.1220.13
tongue and this follow-up process enables skills to be transferred and applied in a secondlanguage.The second Web 2.0 technology examined is “e-portfolio”. Again, in conjunction with courses in theirnative language, students are required to create their own online portfolio in English using the portfolioplatform Mahara, complete with their résumé, covering letters, details of projects, other academicachievements and any other miscellaneous data relevant to successfully gaining employment as agraduate engineer. The group structure of the platform allows for both instructor and peer assessment,as well as self reflection for students post submission. This exercise also demonstrates interculturaldifferences within the EU, and also between EU