Impacting the Community through a Sophomore Design Experience (original) (raw)
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Service-Learning and Civic Engagement as the Basis for Engineering Design Education
Engineering Design and Innovation Methods [Working Title]
Service-learning (SL) is among the pedagogies that can be used to teach students the engineering design process. The similarities and differences of SL as implemented via engineering design are compared to community and civic engagement typical in disciplines such as social sciences. Although engineering design can be conceptualized via a number of paradigms, a human-centered design approach is particularly well-suited to SL projects. SL projects typically engage engineering students and instructors with stakeholders who do not have technical backgrounds. This approach is different than many industrially-sponsored projects that are more typical in capstone design projects and poses unique challenges and opportunities for engineering design education. Best practice recommendations for SL design projects have been distilled, with a particular emphasis on developing reciprocal partnerships and meaningful student reflection. SL design projects can lead to a rich array of knowledge, skills, and attitude outcomes among students, including ethical development, humility and empathy, and creativity and innovation. Enhanced recruiting and retention using this pedagogy has also been reported. Assessment of community partner satisfaction, learning, and outcomes are generally less well documented. SL design projects can be integrated into courses ranging from first-year to senior capstone, providing benefits to communities while enhancing students' skills.
ProCEED: A program for civic engagement in engineering design
Proc. …, 2000
Engineering Design) recently started at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The program is aimed at giving mechanical engineering students access to the community in a way that engages their engineering skills to provide valuable contributions to the surrounding community. The program was also aimed at fostering student leadership roles within the department by allowing Pi Tau Sigma, The National Mechanical Engineering Honor Society, to take the lead role in the program. Students involved in the program help solicit projects from the surrounding community for development and prototyping in the senior design course, ME 450. Students in the course benefit from the projects by learning to interact with community sponsors, usually without technical training. Students also benefit by learning how to use their engineering skills to solve everyday problems in a community service capacity. This paper will provide an overview of the current course structure in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan, how the ProCEED program fits into this existing course structure, the goals of the program, community education resulting from the introduction of the program, projects that have resulted from the program, sustainment and expansion of the program, and finally an evaluation of the program by an external source.
Learning Design through the Lens of Service: A Qualitative Study
International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship
Twenty-four senior-level capstone engineering design projects were completed at a large, public, primarily undergraduate university involving 85 students (70 male and 15 female). All projects involved the design of equipment to facilitate physical activity for people with disabilities. The effects on: i) learning design, ii) attitude towards people with disabilities, iii) motivation to complete team design projects and iv) interdisciplinary collaboration were analyzed through 24 one-hour focus groups. We explored the student experience using a constructivist approach and grounded theory. Four major themes (with associated sub-themes) emerged from our data analysis: learning design (project management, iterative design process, and user-centered design), motivation to complete design (engineering, disabilities, user), perceptions of people with disabilities (previous experience, changed attitudes and beliefs), and multidisciplinary collaboration (etiquette presentation, communication...
Implementation of Service Learning into Engineering Design
Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA), 2017
This paper will discuss themes related to the implementation of the engineering design process by two second-year engineering students while working in an international setting on a service learning project. In February 2015, the authors of this paper designed, tested, and implemented a novel wheelchair attachment to improve the mobility of persons with disabilities in Kenya. This project was carried out in its entirety during a period of 2 weeks, while staying in the small village of Mikinduri, located in Kenya's Eastern Province. The scope of this paper will include benefits of implementing such projects into engineering design curriculum, along with recommendations based on the authors' experiences. Topics such as CEAB Graduate Attributes covered, material availability, and communication barriers will be compared and contrasted between standard and service learning design projects.
Service Learning: A Powerful Approach to the Introduction of Engineering Design for Freshman
Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2011
Service learning is a very interesting pedagogical approach for engineering education. It can be used in most engineering courses, but it fits well in a project-based design course. Through service learning, the students work with a real customer, apply all the steps of the design cycle, deliver a functional prototype, manage a real project, understand the multi-faceted responsibilities of an engineer and develop team work and communication skills. The approach was introduced in an existing, first year, first semester, design course. The experience shows that projects can be found in the community without too much effort, students perform very well and can deliver functional and useful prototypes in four months. Before introducing the service learning approach, the course was already well evaluated and is even more appreciated now. The conclusion is that service learning is a perfect approach for a course that was designed to introduce students to real-world problems in engineering ...
Measuring the benefit of service oriented student design projects
Conference on Frontiers in Education, 2008
The State of Tennessee Department of Education provides grant support to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) to design, prototype, test, evaluate and disseminate products, procedures, and services that apply adaptive and assistive technologies to children with special needs. Eight to sixteen projects have been completed by freshman and upper level students each year since the fall of 2005. The academic outcome of these projects is an opportunity for students to experience the design process, aid someone's ability to be independent, and learn how engineering can benefit our society. The students who participate in these projects informally express they are motivated by knowing they have designed a device that can improve the life of a child. A recent formal survey of those students who have participated in these projects confirms this statement.
This paper presents a novel approach in preparing the engineers of the future to address tomorrow's challenges in technology and society by (1) cultivating innovative characteristics such as cognitive and analytical skills, ingenuity, and creativity necessary for future engineers who are global citizens and leaders in business and public service; (2) addressing the context within which engineering education must help students in professional, geopolitical, economical; and societal needs in the future; and (3) understanding how the evolution of technological advances will impact the world and the engineering profession in the future.
International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship
The Senior Capstone Design course is one of the most important in the four-year industrial engineering curriculum. The course concludes the Industrial Engineering (IE) student’s undergraduate studies, satisfying the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology’s (ABET) requirements and allowing students to work in collaborative teams. Service-learning is an educational approach that integrates academics with community service; students apply classroom content to community problems, thereby enhancing learning while providing needed services to underserved populations. The proposed service-learning aims to address all the ABET requirements as well as involve a collaborative research partnership in which students conduct research to meet a community organization’s needs. The deliverables for this project include (1) a detailed report describing the design, analysis, performance, and alternative approaches, (2) the physical prototype developed by the team, and (3) a network of expe...