The educational value of student projects involving industry has been well recognised at the University of Auckland for a considerable time. Technology management and design projects drawn from industry are organised as capstone experiences in the final year of the undergraduate curriculum, and provide students with a range of open-ended, complex, multi-disciplinary problems and expose them to team-based problem solving in a realistic business, societal, and environmental context.
In line with CDIO principles these projects are designed to help students understand market and business needs, appreciate a range of ethical, social, environmental and legal requirements, and develop a systems perspective of professional engineering work. Projects are organised in such a way that they encourage students to set realistic goals, apply sound project and team management procedures and create innovative solution concepts on the basis of their fundamental technical engineering knowledge.
These projects provide significant educational benefits which are achieved through a combination of careful project selection and organisation, comprehensive team facilitation and management, and the application of appropriate assessment procedures. In this paper the effectiveness of various tools and methods applied in the course are discussed. Issues covered include the identification of the individual student knowledge gained through team-based project courses, the application of novel assessment tools to encourage deep and reflective learning, as well as the relationship between achieving the stated project objectives and the course learning outcomes.