| Semester 2, 2022 Online | |
| Units : | 1 |
| Faculty or Section : | Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences |
| School or Department : | School of Engineering |
| Grading basis : | Graded |
| Course fee schedule : | /current-students/administration/fees/fee-schedules |
Staffing
Examiner:
Overview
Problem solving skills are essential to practicing engineers, construction managers and spatial scientists. This course enables students to acquire and practice the basic problem solving skills necessary for their chosen program of study. The skills developed through the successful completion of this course can then be applied to problems encountered in subsequent courses and throughout their career.
This course provides students with a foundation for solving problems in Engineering, Construction Management and Spatial Science. The course emphasises the development of critical thinking skills, information literacy, communications, time and resource management, and teamwork. In this course, students are introduced to the problem solving process and to a number of problem solving strategies and approaches.
Course learning outcomes
On completion of this course students should be able to:
- Discuss the nature of engineering, construction management and spatial science problems and characterised them on the basis of their complexity, time constraints, open-endedness, the quality of their definition and their acceptable solution space;
- Demonstrate information literacy skills;
- Use a computer spreadsheet for analysing, summarising and graphical representation of both numerical and categorical data;
- Produce and interpret graphical representations such as flow-charts, engineering schematics and flow diagrams;
- Explain the roles of brain-storming, conceptual design, proof-of-concept, problem dissection, analogy, reverse engineering, physical modelling, trial and error, physical modelling and project management within the problem solving cycle;
- Explain the basic personal skills needed to work effectively within a problem solving team and produce problem solving reports in a professional manner with appropriate referencing
Topics
| Description | Weighting(%) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Characteristics and types of engineering, construction management and spatial science problems | 5.00 |
| 2. | Elementary Statistics | 35.00 |
| 3. | Acquisition of information and knowledge for Problem Solving | 10.00 |
| 4. | Approaches to Problem Solving and the Problem Solving Cycle | 15.00 |
| 5. | Managing time and Resources | 5.00 |
| 6. | Team dynamics and Conflict Resolution | 10.00 |
| 7. | Project documentation and reporting | 20.00 |
Text and materials required to be purchased or accessed
Student workload expectations
To do well in this subject, students are expected to commit approximately 10 hours per week including class contact hours, independent study, and all assessment tasks. If you are undertaking additional activities, which may include placements and residential schools, the weekly workload hours may vary.
Assessment details
| Description | Group Assessment |
Weighting (%) | Course learning outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiz A1 of 2 | No | 10 | 3 |
| Quiz A2 of 2 | No | 10 | 3 |
| Report 1 | No | 20 | 1,2,3,4 |
| Report 2 | No | 30 | 1,2,5,6 |
| Report 3 | No | 30 | 1,2,5,6 |