PERSONAL LEARNING JOURNALS IN A CAPSTONE DESIGN COURSE AS A TOOL TO ENCOURAGE LIFE-LONG LEARNING

Engineering curricula is generally a very busy one filled with many assignments, labs and projects that are designed to train the engineer to work quickly, either individually or in teams, to efficiently analyse and solve problems. Because of the number of contact hours and heavy workload, there is little if any time for reflective learning for engineering students and there are few, if any, courses that include a personal learning journal as part of the course deliverables. This paper describes the pilot use of a personal learning journal in an eight month capstone design course as part of the assessment criteria to meet the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attribute for life-long learning. The personal learning journal took the form of a weekly entry, a meta-reflective piece completed thrice in the course, and a mid-year class playlist. The entries are analysed for changes in language and focus throughout the year using word clouds which illustrate changing feelings during the course.