MPRE Planning and Real Estate with Professional Placement

Planning, Property and Environmental Management professionals intervene in the human built and natural environments. To do so effectively requires excellent analytical skills informed by quality evidence and brought to bear with support of digital tools and analytical techniques. This unit offers practical knowledge about evidence-based decision making. It provides a practical understanding of how to identify, retrieve, analyse, interpret and report data and information to evidence the socio-economic and environmental conditions of places. Students will learn to use a Geographic Information System (GIS), other digital mapping platforms, and data analysis tools. The unit will offer students the opportunity to critically analyse and present evidence about places using the relevant tools and techniques. Students will learn how to identify key issues and problems from an initial baseline analysis of a real-world case study and build on this foundation to formulate and appraise alternative course of actions for identified problems in various domains, including housing and property, community infrastructure and environmental sustainability. The unit offers students the opportunity to develop technical report writing skills, employing various forms of visual communication, including maps, analytical diagrams and charts.

-Introduce students to Geographic Information System (GIS) and digital and analytical tools for decision-making in Planning & Real Estate, and Environmental Management.

-Provide students the opportunity to develop skills in how to gather, analyse and interpret socio-economic and spatial data and information about the built and natural environment.

-Offer students the opportunity to develop initial skills in the formulation and appraisal of interventions in response to real-world built and natural environment problems.

-Provide a platform for students to consolidate, integrate and apply knowledge and skills learned in other year 1 course units.  
 

Expected outcomes

The unit will offer students opportunities to develop critical employable skills and attributes.  Undergraduate students in their first year will learn the suite of software and tools as well practical knowledge that they will apply throughout their studies and subsequently in their professional careers. They will learn to write technical reports to communicate the findings of their analysis through the Baseline Analysis assessment. The Proposals Formulation assessment will also enable them to distil and communicate their ideas and proposed solutions clearly. The unit thus offers students the opportunity for practical experience of some of the typical tasks professionals in Planning, Real Estate and Environmental Management undertake, as well as the skill sets that are required and valued in these professions and more widely.

Intended Learning Outcomes: 

The course unit will be delivered mainly through computer-based practical workshop sessions. The practical sessions will build on a few lecture-style sessions that will introduce students to relevant concepts and underlying principles of evidence-based decision making, GIS, mapping and basic descriptive statistical analysis.

The unit will run twice in a week, with each session lasting two hours of lectures and/or practical computer-based workshop. Students will use part of the scheduled slots to work on their assessments during which the course convener and teaching assistants will be available to provide support in the use of relevant software and analytical tools.

There will be a day’s fieldtrip to a case study area that students will base their choice of assessment topic on (i.e. Baseline Analysis and Proposals Formulation).

Identify and explain the socio-spatial, environmental and economic factors that shape places
Identify various sources of data and information relevant to decision-making in planning, real estate and environmental management
Demonstrate the use of appropriate types of evidence in decision-making in the fields of planning, real estate and environmental management
 

Critically evaluate cause-and-effect relationships within specific domains such as housing and property, infrastructure, and environmental sustainability, as basis for proposals formulation
Propose and appraise alternative courses of action in response to real-world community problems and opportunities
 

Retrieve, organize and analyse socio-economic and environmental data and information from various sources, using appropriate methods
Apply a Geographic Information System and digital mapping platform and tools to gather, analyse and visualize socio-economic and environmental conditions of a town

Demonstrate technical report writing skills as a critical means of communication in the professional practice of planning, real estate and environmental management
Demonstrate the ability to employ appropriate software, digital tools and analytical techniques—skills that are required and valued in professional practice 
 

Written feedback will be provided through Turnitin within 15 working days of submission.

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