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Design thinking is a robust framework for creatively and effectively identifying and solving important human problems. While design thinking is commonly associated with fields like industrial design, it can be applied to many problem types. For example, several recent examples demonstrate the applicability of design thinking to the design and development of educational materials, courses, and systems. These results suggest that design thinking could be used as a framework to (re)design and develop effective engineering courses. The goal of this project is to understand how nine educators from different backgrounds did or did not use design thinking to redesign a sophomore-level electrical and computer engineering course. The primary source of data was 21 transcribed audio recordings of design meetings and is supplemented with interviews, reflections, and course artifacts. Thematic analysis revealed 10 themes that represent connections and disconnections between the process used and a common five-stage design thinking process (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test). These themes demonstrate some of the opportunities and challenges related to design thinking within an engineering course design setting. In particular, they suggest that engineering course design is a relevant context for design thinking, but one to which design thinking methods do not always naturally translated. Future work should focus on better understanding unique applications of design thinking within engineering course design and methods that might to support more designerly behaviors among engineering educators.
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Cross-functional Team Course Design Project in Engineering
This work-in-progress research paper explores the intersection of cross-functional teamwork and design thinking within the course design process through collaborative autoethnography. Collaborative autoethnography uses individual and dialogic reflections to provide a detailed and nuanced exploration of experiences within a culture (e.g., a course design team) and generate insights that might inform broader community of individuals who experience related cultures. In this study, we investigate how individual educators attempt to shape and are shaped by a unique team course design process in electrical and computer engineering. The participant-researchers in this study are three electrical and computer engineering faculty members and one engineering education researcher who have participated in a six-semester-long course redesign effort. The effort has emphasized building and utilizing a new cross-functional team approach, imbued with design thinking strategies, to support improved professional formation and student-centeredness within an embedded systems course for electrical and computer engineering students. In this study, data collection and analysis were integrated and iterative. This process engaged cycles of setting writing prompts, individual writing, group discussion and reflection, and setting new writing prompts. This process was repeated as participant-researchers and the team as a whole refined their insights, explored emergent topics, and connected their observations to external research and scholarship. The autoethnographic process is ongoing, but five themes have emerged that describe key features of the team course design process and experience: (1) uncertainty, (2) navigating the team, (3) navigating the self, (4) navigating the system, and (5) process. The paper features a collection of participant-researcher reflections related to these emergent themes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1623125
- PAR ID:
- 10337953
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Electrical and computer engineering technologies have evolved into dynamic, complex systems that profoundly change the world we live in. Designing these systems requires not only technical knowledge and skills but also new ways of thinking and the development of social, professional and ethical responsibility. A large electrical and computer engineering department at a Midwestern public university is transforming to a more agile, less traditional organization to better respond to student, industry and society needs. This is being done through new structures for faculty collaboration and facilitated through departmental change processes. Ironically, an impetus behind this effort was a failed attempt at department-wide curricular reform. This failure led to the recognition of the need for more systemic change, and a project emerged from over two years of efforts. The project uses a cross-functional, collaborative instructional model for course design and professional formation, called X-teams. X-teams are reshaping the core technical ECE curricula in the sophomore and junior years through pedagogical approaches that (a) promote design thinking, systems thinking, professional skills such as leadership, and inclusion; (b) contextualize course concepts; and (c) stimulate creative, socio-technical-minded development of ECE technologies. An X-team is comprised of ECE faculty members including the primary instructor, an engineering education and/or design faculty member, an industry practitioner, context experts, instructional specialists (as needed to support the process of teaching, including effective inquiry and inclusive teaching) and student teaching assistants. X-teams use an iterative design thinking process and reflection to explore pedagogical strategies. X-teams are also serving as change agents for the rest of the department through communities of practice referred to as Y-circles. Y-circles, comprised of X-team members, faculty, staff, and students, engage in a process of discovery and inquiry to bridge the engineering education research-to-practice gap. Research studies are being conducted to answer questions to understand (1) how educators involved in X-teams use design thinking to create new pedagogical solutions; (2) how the middle years affect student professional ECE identity development as design thinkers; (3) how ECE students overcome barriers, make choices, and persist along their educational and career paths; and (4) the effects of department structures, policies, and procedures on faculty attitudes, motivation and actions. This paper will present the efforts that led up to the project, including failures and opportunities. It will summarize the project, describe related work, and present early progress implementing new approaches.more » « less
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This project evaluates if and how an intervention to design a K-12 STEM activity related to water chemistry impacts the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of junior students enrolled in a required environmental engineering course. ISE is defined as having five behavioral components: questioning, observing, experimenting, idea networking, and associational thinking. In this course, the K-12 STEM activity is designed with a team of 3 to 5 students. The activity requires that the students develop an innovative activity that demonstrates environmental engineering concepts such as acid mine drainage, ocean acidification, and contaminant removal. The student projects are scaffolded throughout the 10 weeks via intermediate submissions and meetings with a K-12 STEM teacher and design mentors. In fall 2022 a pilot of the study was conducted and relied on a quantitative survey instrument that measured ISE, innovation interest (INT), and future innovative work interest (IW). Based on the preliminary findings of factor structure, item reliability, and face validity evaluated by two faculty and two undergraduate students, small changes were made to the quantitative assessment instrument. The revised survey was deployed in the fall of 2023 in a required junior-level test course and a senior-level control course. The senior-level control course consisted of students who took the junior-level course with the K-12 STEM activity in the previous year. In 2023 the K-12 STEM activity intervention also included additional scaffolding through the addition of 3 team-based and 2 individual reflections to understand the process of ISE formation. Pre-post comparisons of the quantitative survey items will be conducted for individual students in the test and control courses. Team and individual reflections from the test course will be analyzed after the course. Potential demographic differences in ISE will be explored. Potential team-level influences will also be evaluated to understand the impact of a team’s ISE score on enhancing an individual team member’s ISE gain. Focus groups and individual interviews with students who participated in the test course will take place in spring 2024. The ISE, INT, and IW of environmental engineering students will be further assessed in spring 2024 through the ISE survey in the environmental engineering capstone design course and a junior-level creativity and entrepreneurship design course. This assessment will compare two different learning experiences on ISE, INT, and IW, the K-12 STEM education activity design with a semester-long, group-based technical design experience. Preliminary results will be presented in the NSF Grantees Poster Session.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34358
