Fostering Learning Principles of Engineering Design

We contend that it is imperative that we recognize the internalization of the principles of engineering design as a career sustaining competency. Accordingly, we have piloted a pre-capstone course called Principles of Engineering Design. In this course we aim to empower the students to internalize the principles of engineering design, learn through doing (reading, designing, building, testing, and post-project analysis), learn to frame, postulate, and implement a plan of action for their Spring 2016 Capstone projects, and transition from being a student to a junior engineer in a company. In this course through a scaffolded set of assignments and activities, we provide an opportunity for students to internalize the principles of engineering design. In Fall 2015 we introduced our students to a problem which involved designing, building, and testing a device capable of navigating a track filled with various sections of “difficult” terrain and pop a buried balloon. Through periodic in-class and out-of-class activities we were able to assess learning and coach the budding engineers. In keeping with Kolb’s experiential learning construct, activities include requiring students to write “learning statements” after lectures, assignments, and at the end of the semester. Learning statements are structured to enable students to articulate learning in the context of an authentic, immersive experience. These statements are evaluated for content and the depth of insight expressed therein and then returned to the students with comments. In this paper, we cover the salient features of a course AME4163 – Principles of Engineering Design and the findings from an analysis of the learning statements. In our work we find evidence that students in project-based design courses are not being evaluated based on the actual learning taking place in the course, which we suggest is caused by a discrepancy between typical methods of instructor evaluation and the lessons learned by students over the course of a project. This conclusion is based on our finding that there is no relationship between student submitted learning statements and the grades that they achieved. Consequently, we suggest that the way students in project-based design courses are evaluated must be changed to reflect learning that takes place as a result of doing and reflection.