The Impact Of Scaffolding On Student Success In A Precapstone Design Course

This paper summarizes four years of active development of a pre-capstone design course at a large state university. Three changes to course structure resulted in large positive changes to the success of the course and improvements in learning outcomes. The most significant impact has arisen from changing the focus of the pre-capstone course from completing projects that utilized specific knowledge domains of electrical engineering to defining and modeling the design process by establishing project milestones which follow the design process. A second change that had large positive impact on student success is developing resources to improve team functioning, matching team size to project complexity, and creating a project manager role on each team. Finally, changes to the learning environment which mimic an actual professional workplace and reduce the barriers to completing design projects have proven effective. Adding and improving methods that scaffold students’ skills in engineering design have resulted in a project success rate that improved from the 60% range to nearly 100%. This increase in the success rate is mirrored by increases in other metrics used to evaluate the course including reflective statements from students, rubric based grading of written artifacts, and scores on a summative examination testing design skills. Lessons from the evolution of this course offer valuable insights to other programs who wish to better prepare students for capstone courses. Introduction and Background Design as an activity is increasing in importance in undergraduate engineering programs both due to ABET criteria and an overall recognition that engineering needs to be more hands-on . From freshman courses to the traditional capstone programs design is often seen as by proponents as a necessary aspect of learning engineering and, as such, plays a unique and important role in many engineering programs. Unlike courses which focus on acquisition of narrow, domain-specific knowledge, design courses often emphasize application of a broad spectrum of knowledge. The importance of design, particularly capstone, courses arises both from their purported impact on students and because of their disproportionate role in assessment and accreditation in many program . Despite the importance of design courses their format varies widely and outcomes are not standardized across programs. The goal of many design courses is to teach students the process of design—for example see —and/or practice applying domain specific knowledge to a design project. Although rarely discussed, at a deeper level faculty want design courses to be developmentally transformative; i.e. help the student actualize themselves as an engineer by taking on the role of an engineer and actively participating in the culture of engineering. Teaching design courses is difficult and time consuming for faculty. This paper presents a case study of a series of interative, ongoing changes to a capstone design course, and emphasizes three changes that significantly improved student learning, project success rates, and student evaluation of the value and utility of the course and required minimal investment of faculty time. This work falls under the theoretical framework of action research . P ge 14224.2 In 2005 the author was tasked by the department head to redesign the first of two courses in the two semester capstone design sequence. This course is taken by first-semester electrical engineering seniors with the goal of preparing them for a subsequent capstone design course where they engage in independent, team-based design projects. In 2004 the capstone course consisted of a series of projects performed by individual students in electronic circuit design. The projects were rigorously and tightly defined, and grades were determined by quantitative performance metrics (i.e. signal to noise ratio, accuracy of gain, etc.). A large number of students were unable to complete the projects satisfactorily resulting a high failure rate and/or large numbers of students withdrawing from the course. A survey of students who had completed the course revealed several issues, predominately the amount of work required for minimal reward and that most students felt unprepared for the design experience. Typical comments by students were “...I felt like my previous classes did not adequately prepare me for the class” or “all of the undergraduate level courses did not build up to this course. This was like ‘wanting to fly without even knowing how to crawl’”. This evaluation showed that change was needed, but how not to implement effective change. The first experience of teaching a capstone design course is both worrisome and frightening to many faculty, the author included. Capstone courses are demanding of faculty time, drawing effort that would otherwise to into research or other courses. Time is spent both in preparation and management of projects as well as face-to-face meetings with students. Perhaps most worrisome is the fact that few faculty members, including the author, have formal preparation in teaching capstone design courses. The breadth of experience necessary to successfully design and manage a capstone course is found in relatively few individuals, necessitating involving colleagues or outside experts to supplement the faculty member’s own knowledge. Fortunately several texts that cover the design process have been released recently, providing central repositories of material that was previously distributed over many sources . However there is still relatively little research on what distinguished effective design courses, or on successful practices that can be adopted to meet program specific course outcomes. Process for Continual Improvements to Capstone Course Faced with teaching a design course for the first time and with little time to research effective practices at programs that might have similar outcomes, the author decided to begin with a course that fit his personal conceptions of design and met with overall department and ABET goals. This course was, however, to be only a starting point for a course that would evolve through small, iterative improvements. Starting with the first iteration of the course feedback was sought from students, teaching assistants (TAs), and other faculty on the effectiveness of the course. Feedback was obtained by an extensive “After Action Review” (AAR) held during final exam week and after final grades had been submitted for students in the course. The instructor and TAs were available for a four hour period and students were invited to come by and voice concerns and possible improvements. Depending on semester 30% to 50% of students provided feedback during these after action reviews. Detailed records of suggestions were kept and the instructor and TA’s acted on those that seemed feasible and would fit the overall course goals and available resources. P ge 14224.3 Over the four years (eight iterations) the course has been taught three of the changes made to the course have proved extremely valuable. Most of these changes required a relative small investment of time and resources; those that were more time intensive have produced resources that are freely available to other programs to adopt. These changes include: replacing loosely structured problem-based learning with a cognitive apprentice approach, providing resources to improve team function, and reducing barriers by changing the working environment. Each individually has resulted in positive changes to the course outcomes and is discussed in detail in subsequent sections. The paper concludes with a summary of changes to outcomes and student learning over the eight semesters the course has been offered. Change #1: From Results to Process Like many engineering faculty, the author is results-oriented, and these beliefs shape his teaching philosophy. In this context “results-oriented” means that at the end of a project something should work and the results of the effort need to be demonstrated by the student team. A large number of capstone courses use project demonstrations to measure project success . However in order for novices to obtain more than engineering knowledge is required, novices require a valid process which must be understood and adhered to by the participants. In early after action reviews a large number of students alluded to “being so close to success but not making it”. Another common sentiment was that the teams had made a large number of avoidable mistakes, none of which was fatal in and of itself but which in combination doomed the project. Reflecting on these statements and making inquiries of other faculty and students in the program it was discovered that nowhere in the degree program was there formal instruction in the process of engineering design. Comparisons with programs at peer universities found similar curricula. Information on the design process is available in several textbooks that have been published in the past five years . There were two hurdles to adoption of more formal design processes in the capstone course. The first was choosing a process which meshed with course goals and would fit with the time constraints of the course. A simplified design process was developed–drawn from reference 3, and shown in Figure 1—and used as a basis for the design project. In addition to the design process shown in Figure 1 a separate taxonomy based on this model was developed to measure student achievement . The second hurdle lay in the perceived value of such instruction to students. To determine whether students would find formal instruction in the design process valuable, adding these elements to the course was suggested to students during the AAR’s; most stated that such formal instruction would have little value in and of itself. Figure 1: Simplified engineering design cycle used for teaching design in the capstone course. P ge 14224.4 As a result of