A Reflection on the Process of Selecting, Developing, and Launching a New Design Project in a Large-scale Introduction to Engineering Design Course (original) (raw)
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2009
An investigation into the impact of a simple team design experience in teaching the engineering design process is described. The design experience occurred early in an Introduction to Engineering course after a single lecture on the engineering design process. The design activity, necessarily simple at this stage, consisted of designing, building, and testing a drag racer, constructed from LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT parts and powered by a single rubber band. Assessment of the value of the experience focused not only on gains in student perceptions of knowledge of and confidence in applying the engineering design process, but also on actual gains in knowledge, as judged by written responses, and on the use of the engineering design process, as judged by student design step logs. Student learning was assessed through questionnaires at the beginning and end of the laboratory period. The questionnaires addressed both student knowledge and student confidence levels. In addition to assigning n...
2010
As both a student and teaching fellow in an Introductory Engineering Design class, experiences and observations have allowed me to see the many benefits of the course’s design project requirement. For many young engineers who chose their major based on an interest in math and science, the design project provides their first encounter with synthesis and evaluation, two skills that distinguish the engineering profession from the natural sciences. The design project requires that students utilize their knowledge and comprehension of math and science to inexpensively and efficiently build something to accomplish a set objective given a series of problem constraints. The design project also requires students to evaluate and reflect on not only their own work, but the work of their colleagues in the class as well. The skills of synthesis and evaluation later become crucial as students progress through their years as upperclassmen and enter the research or industrial fields. My own experie...
Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning
Journal of Engineering …, 2005
This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning. The capstone course is a U.S. term for design courses typically taken in the senior year. The term cornestone is a recent U.S. coinage for design or project courses taken early (e.g., first year) in the engineering curriculum. It was intended to draw a distinction from and preserve the mataphor of the capstone course. G handle uncertainty; G make decisions; G think as part of a team in a social process; and G think and communicate in the several languages of design.
6th ASEE Global …, 2007
This study has been developed within a systematic framework to design innovative learning environments in science and engineering education. The aim of our research is to help students acquire a functional understanding of the subject matter. During for example labwork, students are expected to link observed data to either theoretical models, or to the "real world" they are exploring. However, according to a large body of research, establishing relevant connections between the concepts, the representations, the models and the observable objects and events is a very difficult task for students.
2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Freshman engineering students often begin their studies with limited, imprecise, and minimally informed conceptions of "engineering design." A deep understanding of this term, however, is vital to an informed awareness of what engineering practice might involve and what engineers see themselves as doing. Textbooks can provide authoritative definition for the student, but these formalisms are (1) challenging for freshman students with limited engineering experience to engage with and (2) fail to capture the complexity of engineering design practices, especially in different disciplines and cultures. In this paper, we examine the efficacy of an activity, developed for a freshman engineering design course that is intended to deepen and enrich students' understanding of these terms by asking them to categorize various artifacts as works of engineering design. Starting with a simple binary question-yes or no-they move to a planar assessment-and finally to a comparative exercise as complications are introduced into the artifact set. Analyzing their pre and post-activity definitions and student reflections on the activity allows us to explore the impact of the exercise on the students' understanding of and engagement with the concept of "engineering design."
Research in Engineering Design, 2012
An investigation into the impact of a single laboratory session team-based design experience early in the freshman year on student learning of the engineering design process is described. Assessment of the experience focused not only on gains in student perceptions of knowledge of and confidence in applying the engineering design process, but also on actual gains in knowledge, as judged by the investigators based on student written responses. The assessment data showed a significant overall increase in both student knowledge and confidence scores as well as significant individual incremental increases. The gains proved to be in particular significant when compared to those for the entire semester-long course. Design-step logs were used to monitor how students navigated through the engineering design process. While the students were exposed to a simplified linear design process in the lecture component of the class, the design logs indicated a more complex reality. Paths for instructional improvement on the topic of the engineering design process should include a discussion of the potentially complex nature of engineering design and a precise definition of terminology.
The current paper describes an Introduction to Engineering class that was taught to a group of high school students in the summer of 1997. The class was offered through an outreach program at the University of California at Berkeley called the Academic Talent Development Program (ATDP), and was designed to give students an overview of the diverse field of engineering. In order to learn what engineers actually do, the students engaged in a variety of projects and handson activities to find out how things work and to practice their own engineering skills. This paper will provide an overview of the syllabus and goals of the course. Specific activities and design projects will also be documented such as the mechanical and computer engineering design challenges, teamwork and student presentations, and the on-line web-based assignments. Detailed examples of student work and student feedback will be reported. The quality of student work, as well as the positive feedback about the class, indicates that these high school students were not only motivated by the subject matter but were also capable of fundamental engineering design and problem solving.