Assessment Philosophy
The majority of the marks go for the project work, assessed primarily through observation (supervisors continual assessment) and the end of exercise report. This will focus on the methodology taken (where undefined), the progress made, the interpretation of the results, and the lessons learnt. The exact balance of marks between these various categories will depend on the individual design exercise and will be declared in advance. There will also be some marks for the quality and professionalism of the report.
Specifically the learning outcomes are
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plan, schedule and progress their work programme
ASS: assessed by the continually assessment and milestone requirements within the design exercises
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communicate technical progress in a professional manner, both written and verbally
ASS: written skills will be assessed through the reports which must effectively report achievements, and the weekly reports. The verbal skills will be central to explaining progress to the supervisors on an ongoing basis.
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employ engineering skill to tackle an engineering problem
ASS: progress through the design exercise will require the application of engineering skill. This will be assessed by the level of progress made and the quality of the implementations. Both the continual assessment and the report will have marking schemes that capture this outcome.
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demonstrate the ability for self-directed learning
ASS: the design exercises are constructed so that the students must take a self-directed approach with minimal guidance. There is an initial training period but after that the students must identify techniques and solutions needed to progress the work. This explicitly requires some self-directed learning and the continual assessment and the report will have marking schemes that capture this outcome.