M. Kaushik
1*,
Preethi Baligar
2,
Gopalkrishna Joshi
2
- School of Electronics and Communication Engineering, KLE Technological University, Hubballi, India
- Centre for Engineering Education Research, KLE Technological University, Hubballi, India
Abstract
During recent times, several initiatives have been taken to redesign engineering curriculum to introduce students to the engineering design process starting from the freshman year itself. This involves taking these students from a world of exercise problem solving having single unique solution to the world of real wide engineering problem solving having multiple solutions. And it is observed to be a challenging task as the students are not familiar with ill-defined nature of engineering problems and are having a tendency to get stuck with the first solution that they get. Problem formulation is the first step in engineering design process in which students are expected to carve out problem definition for a given need statement. Students face difficulties in this step, in framing the problem statement and representing it in terms of functions, objectives and constraints depicting an engineering system.In this work, authors share their experience of mentoring freshman students in problem formulation phase of their course project which is done as part of a course, titled, "Engineering Exploration". The work is presented in terms of its evolution of the pedagogies and practices over three cycles of the delivery of the course. An inclusive pedagogy consisting of in-class, case-based reasoning and template based structured mentoring has resulted in improved quality of formulated problems. The paper discusses the details of processes and pedagogy.
References
- Atkins, R. (2013). Grand Challenges for Engineering. Chicago
- Bordogna, J., Fromm, E., & Ernst, E. W. (1993). Engineering education: Innovation through integration. Journal of Engineering Education, 82(1), 3-8.
- Bransford, John D., Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking. "2000." How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school.
- Crismond, D. P., & Adams, R. S. (2012). The informed design teaching and learning matrix. Journal of Engineering Education, 101(4), 738-797.
- Dorst, K. (2011). The core of �design thinking� and its application. Design studies, 32(6), 521-532.
- Dym, C. L., Agogino, A. M., Eris, O., Frey, D. D., & Leifer, L. J. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 103-120.
- Dym, C. L., Little, P., Orwin, E. J., & Spjut, E. (2009). Engineering design: A project-based introduction. John Wiley and sons.
- Dym, C.L., �Learning Engineering: Design, Languages, and Experiences,� Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 88, No. 2, 1999, pp. 145�148.
- Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (2004). The intellectual development of science and engineering students. Part 1: Models and challenges. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(4), 269-277.
- Howard, R.A., �Decision Analysis: Practice and Promise,� Management Science, Vol. 34, No. 6, 1988, pp. 679�695.
- Knight, D. W., Carlson, L. E., & Sullivan, J. F. (2007, June). Improving engineering student retention through hands-on, team based, first-year design projects. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Research in Engineering Education. Honolulu, HI.
- Lang, J. D., Cruse, S., McVey, F. D., & McMasters, J. (1999). Industry expectations of new engineers: A survey to assist curriculum designers. Journal of Engineering Education, 88(1), 43-51.
- Rodgers, P. (2013). Articulating design thinking. Design Studies, 34(4), 433-437.
- Sheppard, S. D., Macatangay, K., Colby, A., & Sullivan, W. M. (2008). Educating engineers: Designing for the future of the field (Vol. 2). Jossey-Bass.
- Stojcevski, A. (2014). Learning to solve �design problems� in engineering education. Washington Accord http://www.ieagreements.org/assets/Uploads/Documents/Hi story/25YearsWashingtonAccord-A5booklet-FINAL.pdf
