ENGINEERING DESIGN COACHES: FACULTY OR GRAD STUDENTS?

The Boyer Commission Report on Undergraduate Education of 1998 calls for universities to make a greater commitment to the training and involvement of graduate students as teachers. Should this apply to the Engineering Design environment? Are there issues of responsibility, technical expertise and professional experience that exclude graduate students from the role of design coach? At the University of Calgary, in eight years of involvement with both faculty and graduate students as design coaches, we have come out strongly in favour of our graduate students. In fact, in most cases, graduate students get as good or better results from the undergraduate students than the faculty members. This paper explores the reasoning behind this result and the environment that produces the result. The focus is on the nature of the design environment as one of participatory inquiry. Perhaps the most significant feature of participatory inquiry is the creation of an environment in which all members (students and design coaches) are simultaneously student and teacher. In fact, the coaches regularly remark that they learn more about design by being a coach than through any other experience they have had. The faculty members, however, are often handicapped by their expertise. This is partly due of the narrow focus of their research area and partly due to the assumption by the students that the knowledge of the faculty member is more important than their own. In a participatory environment, the properly trained and supported graduate student is better able to develop a relationship with the student design teams that fosters the types of thinking and activity necessary for effective design work. This includes responding appropriately to vague, poorly defined problems that characterize design work, developing and defending independent solutions to open-ended problems, and communicating effectively on several levels. The coaches are not required to become experts on each of the projects they coach and in fact, are encouraged to stand back and allow the students become the experts for their projects. Further, the mandate of the coaches is to allow students to uncover the answers regarding design process even if it means they may flail somewhat. The students begin to take ownership of their knowledge and authentic design work results.