Developing Student Meta-Cognition in a Design Course.

Abstract

practice can help with developing professional skills. To encourage the development of self reflection and ultimately meta-cognition related to project and design work, undergraduate electrical engineering students in anon-capstone project course undertook reflection exercises on their group project. The instructor observed a range of abilities to undertake the reflections, with some not going beyond describing the work that they had done, whereas others started to show a deeper consideration and thinking about their project work. The main route for reflection was a reflection journal, where five entries were required over the period of the project. The choice of reflection topic was up to the student except in one entry case when a mandatory question on life long learning was asked. For each of the other reflections a suggestion was provided for a reflection topic. Other opportunities for reflection were included with questionnaires at the beginning and end of the course, as well as presentations including one describing one thing the group had learned.The individual experiences of students in a first major group project course allow a range of reflections to occur, from ideas about planning, group work, problem solving and design being potential areas for discussion. Evaluation here is restricted to the instructors observations and not a detailed analysis of the student’s reflection work. This is an early examination of reflection and meta-cognition of the students but there areindications that students are taking the first steps in considering their approaches to project and design work.