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1. Innovating Scaffolded Prototyping for Design Education: Toward A Conceptual Framework Derived from Mathematics Pedagogy

   Ali, Hadi ; Kinach, Barbara ; Lande, Micah ( November 2019 , Forty-First Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   null (Ed.)

   The practice of prototyping is challenging to novice designers as they underutilize insights that prototyping offers to solving design problem. Central to this challenge is the abstract nature of design concepts like idea representation, iteration, and problem solution-space exploration. A unique opportunity from mathematics education presents itself for design educators and facilitators; that is, teaching with manipulatives. We seek to transfer such practices in mathematics education to design education and practice. Challenges exist for design researchers to carefully craft activities in design education mainly because of the open-endedness of problems, decision-making that takes place while designing, and the inherent uncertainties in the design problems. Ultimately, the goal is to develop students’ ability to flexibly transfer expertise to other contexts and new design challenges. 

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2. Decision Making in Engineering Capstone Design: Participants’ Reactions to a Workshop about Diverse Types of Reasoning

   Dringenberg, E. ( January 2019 , IJEE International Journal of Engineering Education)

   Engineers are expected to make decisions in the context of design, which is ill-structured. Capstone courses serve as an opportunity for engineering students to engage in design and practice making decisions that do not have a single correct answer. Empirical research has demonstrated that when making such decisions, people use informal reasoning, of which there are multiple types: rationalistic, intuitive, and empathic. Despite this reality, engineering education often portrays decision making in the context of engineering design as objective. For example, capstone design instruction typically focuses on providing students with tools to facilitate rational reasoning alone. In this paper, we introduce a framework for informal reasoning that can be used to think critically about how we teach decision making in the context of engineering capstone design. In addition, we use this paper to briefly describe the ways in which capstone design conference attendees engaged with this framework when it was presented in a workshop during the 2018 Capstone Design Conference. To conclude, we present preliminary recommendations for capstone design educators to integrate more opportunities for diverse and realistic forms of reasoning in their teaching practices. 

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3. Defining Open-Ended Problem Solving Through Problem Typology Framework

   https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v10i1.11033  

   Olewnik, Andrew ; Yerrick, Randy ; Simmons, Amanda ; Lee, Yonghee ; Stuhlmiller, Brian ( January 2020 , International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP))

   Problem solving is central to engineering education. Yet, there little agreement regarding what constitutes an exemplary design problem or case analysis problem for modeling undergraduate instruction after. There is even less agreement in engineering education literature regarding the best way to measure students ability or progress in learning to be better problem solvers in these discrete problem categories. We describe the development of a research method toward accessing how students think about design is described, what constitutes a measurable response, and how to compare through qualitative research methods pre and post student performance. The discussion draws from Jonassen’s (2000) framework for problem typology, as well as cognitive learning frameworks of design thinking, and metacognition as a theoretical basis that informs the problem formulation and planned approach for analysis. 

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4. Engineering Judgment and Decision Making in Undergraduate Student Writing

   Francis, R. ; Paretti, M. C. ; Riedner, R. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   null (Ed.)

   In this paper, we argue that the exploration of engineering judgment in undergraduate education should be grounded at the intersection of decision making, situated cognition, and engineering identity production. In our view, engineering judgment is an embodied cognitive process that is situated in written and oral communication, involved with immediate praxis, and takes place within the contexts of standards and traditions of the engineering communities of practice. Moreover, engineering judgment is constituted as authoritative communication tasks that draw on the subject’s and audience’s common experiences and knowledge base for its clarity and persuasive power (e.g., Weedon (2019), "The role of rhetoric in engineering judgment," IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun. 62(2):165-177). The objective of this work short essay is to review the engineering education literature with the aim of synthesizing the concept of engineering judgment from theories of decision-making, identity, communities of practice, and discourse communities. Although the rationale for developing engineering judgment in undergraduate students is the complexity they will face in professional practice, engineering educators often considerably reduce the complexity of the problems students face (with learning engineering judgement or with engineering judgment in their undergraduate education?). Student work intended to train engineering judgment often prescribes goals and objectives, and demands a one-time decision, product, or solution that faculty or instructors evaluate. The evaluation process might not contain formal methods for foregrounding feedback from experience or reflecting on how the problem or decision emerges; thus, the loop from decision to upstream cognitive processes might not be closed. Consequently, in this paper, our exploration of engineering judgment is guided by the following questions: How have investigators researchers? defined engineering judgment? What are the potential limitations of existing definitions? How can existing definitions be expanded upon? What cognitive processes do students engage to make engineering judgments? How do communication tasks shape students’ engineering judgments? In what ways does engineer identity production shape students’ engineering judgments? How might a definition of engineering judgement suggest areas for improving undergraduate education? 

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5. Engineering judgment and decision making in undergraduate student writing

   Francis, Royce ; Riedner, Rachel ; Paretti, Marie C. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   In this paper, we argue that the exploration of engineering judgment in undergraduate education should be grounded at the intersection of decision making, situated cognition, and engineering identity production. In our view, engineering judgment is an embodied cognitive process that is situated in written and oral communication, involved with immediate praxis, and takes place within the contexts of standards and traditions of the engineering communities of practice. Moreover, engineering judgment is constituted as authoritative communication tasks that draw on the subject’s and audience’s common experiences and knowledge base for its clarity and persuasive power (e.g., Weedon (2019), "The role of rhetoric in engineering judgment," IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun. 62(2):165-177). The objective of this work short essay is to review the engineering education literature with the aim of synthesizing the concept of engineering judgment from theories of decision-making, identity, communities of practice, and discourse communities. Although the rationale for developing engineering judgment in undergraduate students is the complexity they will face in professional practice, engineering educators often considerably reduce the complexity of the problems students face (with learning engineering judgement or with engineering judgment in their undergraduate education?). Student work intended to train engineering judgment often prescribes goals and objectives, and demands a one-time decision, product, or solution that faculty or instructors evaluate. The evaluation process might not contain formal methods for foregrounding feedback from experience or reflecting on how the problem or decision emerges; thus, the loop from decision to upstream cognitive processes might not be closed. Consequently, in this paper, our exploration of engineering judgment is guided by the following questions: How have investigators researchers? defined engineering judgment? What are the potential limitations of existing definitions? How can existing definitions be expanded upon? What cognitive processes do students engage to make engineering judgments? How do communication tasks shape students’ engineering judgments? In what ways does engineer identity production shape students’ engineering judgments? How might a definition of engineering judgement suggest areas for improving undergraduate education? 

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