Assignment task

Starting in the Teaching Week after the break, the learning and teaching in BISM7255 will be in Blended Learning Mode with a particular focus on the no-code/ low-code application Mendix. This is the core part of the Work-Integrated Learning (WIL).

To have a final assessment of the student’s learning, a low-code business application (app) developed and then reflected on in a journal. Particularly, students must first develop the app to be able to write a reflective journal about their low-code development work. It is the final assessment piece for the course.

The app is the software artifact created in the Medix lectures. It must be

1)   Fully working, deployed, and with meaningful data.

2)   complete regarding the customer requirements as elicited during the course, 3)   include indigenous perspectives and values,

4)   following the design principles regarding style and layout by the client, and 5)   developed using the low-code platform capabilities as per the teaching.

See the details in the rubric.

The reflective journal:

Students are expected to write in their reflective journals about their significant Mendix learning experiences. This means they should reflect on the content, meaning, and value of the experience in learning coding and app development. It is important in the reflection to personally assess how the learning improves their future careers and career prospects (e.g., as a Business Analyst, Product Owner).

In the form of a table, the reflection needs to address which Mendix features were used, what challenges and development issues were encountered, and which metacognitive skills students developed.

Finally, the journal should end with a reflective account of what and how students embedded the Indigenous perspectives and Indigenous cultural values.

To better appreciate this assignment, it needs to be clear what a reflective journal is and how it is used for teaching and learning purposes. Based on the article by Plack et al. (2005) (p. 200), a reflection is defined “as the process of examining an experience” undertaken as “an internal process that helps the individual refine his or her understanding of an experience” . An expected and desired outcome of the reflection is that “it may lead to changes in the individual’s perspective”. Ultimately, reflections “result in new insights and deeper understandings of [a person’s] experiences”  … and …   “through  this analytical process that the reflective [person] … develops a change in perspective”.

The Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority explains that reflective journaling helps students achieve core skills of learning. In general, a learning journal can document a variety of information, ideas, thoughts, learning strategies, and working processes, and should contain decisions made and reasons or justifications for these decisions. Because the learning journal is reflective, it informs further learning or future experiences. It enables students to identify their growth throughout a subject or experience and sets goals to develop metacognitive skills.

It is recommended to structure, with the relevant headings, the journal into the following four sections:

1. Introduction

In your own words, describe the client, the development task, and the version of the app you used. Word limit for this section: 30-75 words

2.       Learning Experiences Table

In your own words, complete the table.

You must have exactly 5 rows. Turn the orientation to landscape, and the table must fit into one A$ page with 11 font, 1.0 line spacing, no full sentences but bullet point style, use bullet points symbol.

3.       Indigenous Perspectives and Indigenous cultural values

In your own words, reflect on what and how the indigenous cultural values and perspectives of Sharoma Aboriginal Corporation are embedded in the Mendix app. Explain your answer in light of the app you developed.

Word limit for this section: 250 words +- 10% words

It is expected that the reflective journal will be around 750 words (tables and narrative) to present the learning and impact reflections. However, the word limit is not considered as a specific criterion in the marking. This means that an assignment with only 500 words but written concisely and focused tightly on the reflections and insights made might be of better quality than a longer journal.

Hence,  students  should  dedicate  time  to  revise  and  improving  their  writing  to  clearly  achieve  a reflection, not a simple reporting of past experiences.

Hints: We found that longer texts are not better assignments. A longer journal means that the student includes a lot of descriptions. Yet, the assignment asks you to reflect. Reflections are shorter because they articulate your own awareness of how you think.

Markers want to read your personal reflections – anything that applies to anyone is not a personal account. Similarly, anything that is general knowledge on Mendix or low-code is not a personal account. Analysing and understanding yourself better through the reflections will make you a better learner for the ‘next’ innovation.

Layout

The assignment must have a cover pages with the title of the assignment, student name and ID. Use the following format & presentation for the text outside the table:

Reflective Essay:

The assignment must be submitted electronically via turn-it-in through the Online Submission Folder on the course Blackboard site. Files submitted as email attachments will not be accepted.

Format:  Word File ----- NO PDFs

You must include screenshots as an appendix of:

Put a max of two screenshots on one A4 page; each screen must have a caption explaining what the screenshot shows

1.   each page of the app

2.   the domain model

3.   each microflow

4.   published app to demonstrate that data is entered and have data included

5.   a choice of other screenshots to showcase the app (max. 5 screenshots)

App:

Students must submit their Mendix App created as part of the WIL project.

Students are asked to add the tutor as a team member to the App by 30 May 2023. It will be done in class. Students can continue working on the app until the due date.

Name of the app:

Student  ID  (8  digits)  and  first  and  last  name.  No   spaces use  underscore.  For  example, “44191384_Michael_Smith” .

Facilitators will help you with naming the app in the seminar. We do this in Week 7 and Week 8.

To submit your app, you need to add the marker as SCRUM MASTER (second Scrum Master):

Submission date: 5 June 2023 at 10am

The  assignment will remain  open for late  submission, but  late  submission penalties will  apply  in accordance with the electronic course profile.

This also applies to the student app -- if a student has not submitted the Mendix App (added the tutor as a Scrum Master) then the submission is considered “incomplete,” and late submission penalties apply.

References

Margaret Plack,Maryanne Driscoll,Sylvene Blissett,Raymond Mckenna, Thomas P Plack(2005) A method for assessing reflective journal writing: Journal of Allied Health 34(4):199-208.

Materials provided by the Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority;http://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/

Matook, Sabine, Wang, Yazhu Maggie, Koeppel, Nuria and Guerin, Simon (2021). Experiential

learning in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) projects for metacognition: Integrating theory with    practice. Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS), Virtual, 6- 10 December 2021.