Action Plan Implemented

Based on Assessment Outcomes of FY 2007

 

 

CNST 4760 – Implementation Plan

 

  1. Objective – Improve student/faculty communication.

 

  1. Initiated By –Efforts are needed to improve communications between students, and between students and the professor.  SIR reports received for Spring of 2006 indicated that this was an area that could stand improvement.

 

  1. Time Frame – This plan shall be implemented on or before the next offering of this course, which would be in Spring Semester 2007.

 

  1. Specific Implementation Method – Make use of WebCT Vista to enhance student and professor communication capabilities and frequency.  By making the professor’s support more readily available to the students, they are more likely to gain throughout the semester.  The professor can also keep better track of and be more responsive to student questions.

 

CNST 4900 – Implementation Plan

  1. Objective – Ensure that Capstone projects are properly evaluated.

 

  1. Initiated By – This plan is presented in response to Outcomes Assessment data and discussions from Fall 2006, made available at the Fall 2006 CNST Kick-off Meeting, which suggests that industry panels may not understand how to properly evaluate each section of Capstone project.

 

  1. Time Frame – This plan shall be implemented on or before the next offering of this course, which would be in Spring Semester 2007.

 

  1. Specific Implementation Method – A weighting system shall be established which will be distributed to the Capstone panelists.  This weighting system will assign a value to each of the sections of the Capstone project based on the importance of that section or aspect of the project.  A draft of the weighting system will be circulated to CM faculty to ensure consensus on the values.  The syllabus and/or handbook will also be changed to reflect this weighting system.

 

 

CNST 1000 – Implementation Plan

  1. Objective – Increase emphasis on presentation skills.

 

  1. Initiated By – This plan is presented in response to Outcomes Assessment data made available in the Fall Semester 2006 CNST Kick-off meeting, which suggests that student presentation skills need improvement.

 

  1. Time Frame – This plan shall be implemented on or before the next offering of this course, which would be in Spring Semester 2007.

 

  1. Specific Implementation Method – The syllabus will be modified to place greater emphasis on the presentation(s) given by students.  During class sessions, students will be given more opportunities to practice their presentation skills.

 

1- Professors that teach Cost Estimating, Project Scheduling and Construction Ethics should be invited to lecture at this class.

2- Special session on the student ethics should be added to this course to prepares them for the CM program.

3- The current skyscraper series is about 12 years old. New Videos and content should be provided for up to date instructions.

4- Include lectures on Building Technologies, Building Information Modeling and Safety.

 

 

 CNST 4710-Construction Safety

 After reviewing capstone assessment and exit interview, I shall make the following changes to the course syllabus:

1.      Add lecture on workers compensation and insurance issues to understand the cost of safety risk.

Add more case studies and statistics to make the class more interesting.

Add another fieldtrip in addition of existing fieldtrip.

 

   CNST 3260-Applied Structure II

 1.         Include fieldtrip to visit material testing labs to demonstrate some testing equipments and testing procedures. Possible visits can be made in Lafarge Testing lab.

2.         Will include a guideline to distribute the project work evenly among the team members.

 

2000 Constriction Graphics:

 Incorporate original size construction drawings with the text books.

Add field measurements and free hand sketching exercises to enhance the students’ capabilities in documenting existing constructions and relate the construction drawings to the field.

Add exercises to produce professional drawings of basic construction details.

 

4570 Development Process I

 Invite external reviewers for the final project.

Require an electronic submittal and a power point presentation for the final project in order to prepare the students for the Capstone Project.

Generate a bank of suggested questions.

Prepare a library of the required electronic forms and spreadsheets for the course.

 

CM 3000 - Computer Applications in Construction

Improve the reference guide for SureTrak - developed by Javier Irizarry

 

Reduce amount of time spent of productivity programs such as MS Office.

Continue to improve lab exercises and assignments to reflect more closely topics addressed in construction practice for Excel and Word sections of the course.

Add lectures on other graphics programs such as Auto Cad and Revit.

 

CM 4800, Construction Simulation:

Updated scenarios that the students worked on based on more recent issues.

Added scenario on construction safety based on actual accidents reported by the students on their project sites.

Included new lectures for preparing the students for CM 4900 which follows this course.

The following measureable course outcomes may be added to the syllabus:

 

CM 3180, Construction Materials and Methods:

Incorporate animation and graphics in explaining the course content.

Update the content from the original lecture notes to new material.

Incorporate a lecture for the use of BIM for MEP.

 

CM 3500, Construction Codes:

Minimize the assignments that require “PEER EVALUATION” in this course to safeguard good students’ performance.

Invite permit official from different local jurisdictions to lecture to the class on permit process.

Enforce the deadlines for assignments as published in the syllabus.

 

CM 3110 Building Techniques and Methods I

Importance to the attendance will be stressed by assigning some percentage in the grading policy.

Guest lectures will be included.

Assignments will be changed.

 

CM3210 Applied Structures I

More assignments will be included.

A site visit will be included.

Students’ presentation will be included.

 

CM 3160 – Building Techniques and Methods II

 

Critique – Poor textbook and class materials

Solution – The old was a classic that we had used for years, but it has become dated and does not have decent supplementary materials available.   We therefore adopted a new textbook that has much better graphics as well as chapter coordinated Powerpoints.  .  Also moved course completely from a personal website to WebCT, which allowed for posting of publisher supplied PowerPoints for each chapter.

 

Critique - Overlap between BTM I and II. 

Solution – Continuing to work on this issue, and anticipate full implementation of a solution in Fall 08  with the introduction of the revised curriculum that the entire faculty has worked on since Spring 07. 

 

CM 4510 - Construction Scheduling

 

Critique – students want more work with scheduling software (continuing criticism)

Solution – this criticism will probably continue until students realize that using software is not the same thing as scheduling.  Will continue to require work with 2 software packages.  (Suretrak and Contractor)

 

Critique – not enough structure and feedback in the class.

Solution – have added a quiz component to the class to supplement the project work.  Also changed the grading process for projects to contract grading rather than traditional A,B,C, etc.

 

Critique – Capstone student’s schedule are not as good as they should be.

Solution – added a second project to course requirements so that students must carry out 2 complete problems in schedule development.  The first problem is now basic, and the second problem is more complex and comprehensive.  Also, I am working with Prof. Makarechi in Capstone so that I deliver a refresher lecture to the Capstone class and follow up with specific requirements for schedule development rather than that old 30%-

75% stages.

 

CM 4560 – Construction Project Management

 

Critique – New case studies in choosing Project Delivery Methods were well received by the students, but they wanted more definition in the problem statements of the cases.

Solutions – added detail, but also added instructor/team meetings so that I could work with each team more closely to guide them in development of case solutions.

 

Critique – some students were unhappy with working in large teams, because it made it difficult for them to coordinate out-of-class team meetings. 

Solution – Reduced the team size from 6-7 students to 3 students each.

 

Critique – students desired more structure and feedback.

Solutiion – added a quiz component to the grading process.

 

General Course Improvement

 

Closed down my personal website.  This website was very popular with the students because it was easy for them to use to get information on class events, assignments, etc.  I could not, however, display copyrighted materials, do evaluations, etc, which limited my ability to give the students access to supplementary materials based on the texts.