Student Engineers Learning to Become Designers

摘要

My doctoral research explores how student mechanical engineers are taught, learn, and apply a design thinking process to rrnroutinely create and innovate in the context of training for industry practice. I am interested in the maturation of master's rrnstudents with backgrounds in mechanical engineering adjusting to a project-based learning experience centered on design rrnthinking methodology and processes. I use a combination of theoretical approaches from design research, engineering education rrnand the learning sciences. My methodology draws on field observations in the classroom of a capstone-plus core mechanical rrnengineer course on design innovation at Stanford University [1] as well as interviews, document analysis and other rrnqualitative methods. I am gathering empirical evidence of what design learning looks like and how it changes over time and rrnhow students conceptualize design and engineering.rnIn order to characterize the transition that students make along the novice to expert design continuum, students' concept rrnmaps for their design processes and drawings of their notions of engineers and designers at work were collected. Students rrnwere asked to generate a concept map of their "typical design process" and to draw a designer at work and an engineer at work rrnalong the lines of the Draw-a-Scientist Test [2]. Initial findings from qualitative content analysis indicate that the rrnconcept maps of design process mature over time along a consistent learning trajectory. Students also have distinct but rrncomplimentary mental models of the roles of a designer and engineer mainly along two emerging themes: idea rrngeneration/implementation and human/tech-centerness.rnA preliminary framework of "Ways of Thinking" [3] relating design thinking activities to engineering thinking activities and rrnproduction and future thinking has been developed and is being used to analyze student project team design activity. Students rrnin the design innovation course capture their work regularly on a wiki and in quarterly design documentation reports. By rrncoding and analyzing the reports of each team, their design steps and order they take in their design processes can be noted. rrnPreliminary analysis of project matched pairs shows that the more leaps around in their design process steps and prototyping rrnactivities a team makes a more novel project deliverable outcome as well as bettering the students' learning experience.rnAdditional observations of students have been done to capture the barriers and catalysts to them learning along thernway. With field observations of regular team meetings, it's apparent students are hindered by a predisposition to plan and rrncalculate repeatedly before taking action and making. The students' learnings are helped by a close proximity to other groups rrnin a shared design space ("situative Zeitgeist"), a series of front-loaded prototype milestone assignments ("scaffolded rrnprototyping"), a practice of encouraging reflection on what is gained from prototyping ("cognitive iteration") and repeatedly rrnstepping through the steps of the design process ("cognitive apprenticeship").rnData collection is complete and the analysis is ongoing.