Project-based learning in an engineering-design course – developing mechanical- engineering graduates for the world of work

Due to its focus in project-based learning, design educators must provide individual coaching and mentoring of student teams as they progress through their design efforts. In order to increase the quantity and quality of design mentoring, the authors have implemented the use of Wiki websites as a medium for providing formative assessment for student design teams enrolled in a sophomore-level Mechanical Engineering design course. Wiki websites, which allow for easy creation and editing of interlinked webpages, were created for each design team in order to provide a virtual space for the creation, compilation, and editing of their design project report submissions. With access to each team’s Wiki site, the mentor is able to observe each team’s product design process unfold and provide feedback using an embedded commenting system. The public presentation of design reports also affords the facilitation of a peer-review of student work. In this paper the authors present details of the implementation of a Wiki for preliminary assessment data for this tool. Results show that the students found the tool and the associated activities to be easy to use, helpful in developing better design reports and a contributing factor to their development of critical and analytical thinking skills. In addition, students who used the tool reported receiving more meaningful formative feedback from the instructor and reported giving more formative feedback to their peers when compared to other sections of the class that were not using the Wiki.

The Mechanical Design course plays an important role in the education system of mechanical majors. It provides students with the necessary theoretical knowledge and practical skills of mechanical majors, and has an important role in promoting students’ professionalism and employability. The purpose of this study is to explore and provide useful ideas and suggestions to improve teaching quality of Mechanical Design courses in vocational colleges and universities, with the goal of promoting the development of vocational education. The research team firstly elaborates the research results of the previous scholars, and then puts forward six targeted suggestions to improve the teaching quality of the Mechanical Design course in view of the existing problems in the teaching of the Mechanical Design course.

A team-based mechanical engineering design course at Stanford University has been expanded to include a new set of students attending remotely from industry. Because this class is centered on collaborative team experiences, it requires a degree of interactivity beyond what can be provided by periodic lecture transmissions. The World-Wide Web has been adopted as an artificial backbone in service of social exchange, and its use in facilitating project-team formation is examined. Once the technological hurdle is overcome, socio-cultural differences between the university environment and workplace emerge as main barriers to successful peer-interaction.

An analysis of elastic multi-leaf springs with triangular, rectangular, and trapezoidal leaf endings is presented, offering valuable insights from both research and educational points of view. Heuristic arguments are first provided explaining why the maximum stress and maximum deflection in a multi-leaf spring of uniform strength are the same as in the triangular cantilever from which the spring is created by dissection, complementing an intuitive deduction of this result commonly used in engineering design textbooks. A rigorous proof based on Euler–Bernoulli beam theory is then presented. It is shown by a matrix analysis that for springs with uniform length decrement and constant leaf thickness, the contact forces between all leaves are equal and that all leaves are of uniform strength. In contrast, for multi-leaf springs with rectangular leaves, the contact forces between different leaves are different, and the leaves are not of uniform strength. New expressions are derived for the spring rate and maximum stresses in springs consisting of graduated-length rectangular leaves, strengthened by additional full-length leaves. The results are compared with the results obtained for multi-leaf springs consisting of graduated-length leaves of uniform strength and added full-length leaves. Two alternative analyzes are then presented, dealing with nipping of springs that results in equal maximum stress across all leaves. The analysis of springs with trapezoidal leaf endings, from which the results for triangular and rectangular leaf endings can be recovered as particular cases, is presented in the Appendix. The presentation throughout the paper is accompanied by a variety of problems intended for student exercise in undergraduate mechanical engineering design courses.

The National Science Foundation in collaboration with its engineering school coalition partners has been exploring methods for improving undergraduate engineering education. This initiative began in response to a 1992 survey of engineering deans and employers that identified specific weaknesses in engineering education. In response to this survey NSF and its partners have been attempting to remediate the identified weaknesses through specific educational practices. These include providing opportunities for: creative problem formulation and solving experiences; designing in teams; developing written, spoken and graphical communication skills; and using computers as cognitive tools. We know that engineering students need such opportunities to develop the kinds of skills that anoint them to change the world, but we know little about the pedagogic issues involved in developing such skills. This paper reports on a preliminary ethnographic study of a mechanical engineering design classroom. Although not developed in response to the NSF initiative, the course as it has evolved over the years has incorporated most of the the aforementioned remediation recommendations.

This paper describes the use of project-based learning to teach design skills to civil engineering students at University College Dublin (UCD). The paper first considers the development of problem-based leaning (PBL) as a tool in higher education. The general issues to be considered in the design of the curriculum for a PBL module are reviewed. Consideration of the literature on the application of PBL in civil engineering suggests that, because of the hierarchical nature of engineering education, PBL is best applied in a hybrid form known as Project Based Learning. A detailed description is given of how hybrid PBL was implemented in the final year of a civil engineering degree programme. In the final section, the results of an evaluation process designed to gain an insight into students’ perceptions of the PBL process are reviewed. The module, which was developed at UCD, provided an excellent mechanism for developing many skills, including problem-solving, innovation, group-working and presentation skills desired by graduate employers. It was clear that the students enjoyed the peer to peer teaching and increased interaction with staff and external experts, which the problem-solving nature of the module facilitated.

In this paper, we describe the cultivation of innovation ability of mechanical design Course in enterprises embedded. Innovation Ability of Mechanical Design. The higher education institutions work hard to align their academic procedures to the global academic environment.[1] Creativity ability is extremely beneficial to the development of intellectual potential and logic training. Therefore, the training of Creativity ability is the focus of teaching a Mechanical Design course academia has aggressively promoted the teaching objective of multiple intelligence learning.[2] The course is the core element for talents cultivation, which act as the most slightest in education. However, it solves the most fundamental problems in education. Therefore, it is important that the course should combine the creative mind and innovative capability. The course of Mechanical Design, with the goal of cultivating engineering students' innovative consciousness and innovative ability, makes full use of enterprise resources, arranges teachers and engineers teaching alternately. Teachers mainly teach with theoretical knowledge while engineers mainly instruct engineering practical knowledge, which encourage students to participate in enterprise projects, scientific research and competition projects as well as use online information to expand learning during extracurricular time. These aim to achieve a spiral rise of students' theoretical knowledge and practical ability as well as advance innovative consciousness and innovative ability.

Conceiving, designing, implementing, and operating (CDIO) is one of the most novel and recent approaches for engineering education. Stressing on active learning as the major instructional tool, it purports to deliver technical knowledge as well as communication and professional skills to engineering students. This paper describes how CDIO principles were used to partially revise design courses in our mechanical engineering program. Two mid-level courses, Creative Design and Machine Design, are presented as case studies. CDIO driven changes in course objectives, instructional strategy, and assessment tools are presented, incorporating active learning elements such as problem-based learning, group learning, and project-based learning. Student groups are required to convert their completed design ideas into an actual product, considering societal, economic, and environmental factors; test the product, and evaluate the challenges and issues. Initial surveys show good response in terms of acceptance and enthusiasm, though both faculty members and students are a little apprehensive about the possible extra workload. The strategy described in this paper is expected to be beneficial for faculty and students in design related courses in particular, and in other engineering and science courses.

technology [4] to a course management system of ED education as it has become a major technology which supports multimedia content publishing and sharing over the Internet. The authors proposed a concept of a new Web 2.0 course management system of ED education as the first step to complete the proposed system. Kanazawa Institute of Technology is a pioneering university in Japan that began its Engineering Design education in 1996. Our Engineering Design courses are characterized by project-based learning in groups. The current web-based information systems for Engineering Design education at KIT are composed of the following independent systems: a course website, an e-Learning system, an oral-presentation review system, and a report-submitting system. The systems are causing unnecessary confusion to both instructors and students, because it is composed of a variety of independent software and their human interfaces are not unified. 2. Learning activities of Engineering Design education A total of 1,700 engineering students from all fourteen engineering divisions must take ED courses. Fifty ED classes are offered in each year. A class consisting of approximately 34 students is divided into seven teams. Each team consists of 4 to 5 students. In order to maintain a high level of quality in the course management, a learning manual for students as well as a course management manual for instructors have been published and revised every year. The students must conduct two hours of in-class instructed learning as well as four hours of outside-class learning activities in teams per week for ten weeks. In our ED education, the Engineering Design Process (EDP) is defined as the process by which the following activities (stages) are performed. The authors analyzed students' learning activities in Engineering Design courses and then designed a new Web 2.0 course management system of Engineering Education in order to help students' learning. The paper shows the first stages of our research efforts toward the completion of a new Web 2.0 course management system of Engineering Education.

1 INTRODUCTION Design education usually employs project-based learning, in which students learn to research, plan, design and reflect on the creation of technological projects [1], [2]. Student experience issues may influence students' design process, as well as their perception of professional knowledge development. Studies have pointed out students are ill-informed about design education when entering university [3]. In the field of design, although there have been student surveys to analyze design thinking skills and for assessing design literacy. However, these studies are primarily assessment tools, and do not investigate students’ attitudes or experiences of their design courses. While several studies focus on measuring students’ cognitive knowledge, assessments of affective variables, such as attitude, are far fewer in number. The objective of this study was to investigate student experiences, specifically the issues and challenges faced by students in three foundational design courses – focusing on introductory design, architectural design and engineering design – at the . We investigate issues such as how do students experience various instruction modes such as lectures and studio; and their experience of working individually or as teams in the three foundational design courses. 2 METHOD We conducted a survey in three foundational design courses, in both online and paper format. The survey comprised quantitative and qualitative components. Respondents consisted of 248 students from the introductory design course, 48 students from the introductory architectural design course and 71 students from the engineering design course. Respondents rated their perceptions on 23 items in two types of questions: Likert, semantic differential. Additionally, they provided their input in two open-ended questions. 3 RESULTS A principal component analysis conducted on the data revealed five factors that primarily contributed to students’ perception of foundational design courses: (1) the fun aspects of design, (2) the stressful aspects of design, (3) Course Pressures, (4) Student temperament issues, (5) Teamwork experience. Performance pressures majorly affected student experience in all three courses. The architectural design course was seen to be the most enjoyable for students, as fun scores were higher than the stress scores, and low course pressures. The engineering design course was observed to be very stressful for students, with low scores for fun. 4 SIGNIFICANCE Student perception of foundational design courses is important because it can be used to drive forward changes in curriculum and pedagogy. While this study uses data from one university, the issues reported here are generic and relevant for instructors developing design courses across different parts of the world. Research in student experience and perspectives is crucial to develop design education and propel it into the future. REFERENCES [1] Y. Doppelt, “Assessing creative thinking in design-based learning,” International Journal of Technology and Design Education, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 55–65, 2009, [2] N. Lee, “Project methods as the vehicle for learning in undergraduate design education: a typology,” Design Studies, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 541–560, Sep. 2009, [3] A. B. Gencosmanoglu, “Learning, teaching and administration in design education: DESIGNtrain Project: Training tools for developing design education,” in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010.

Introduction . In the educational systems of different countries, much experience has been gained regarding the use of project-based learning. This method is an alternative to traditional lecture-based learning: it helps to pull together a theoretical training material with real life; additionally, it changes the roles of pupils and teachers: students become active fully-competent subjects of an educational process, whereas teachers organize, supervise and direct this process, but do not transfer readily available information. The aim of the publication is an analytical review of the cases of application of project-based learning in Finland, France, Australia, China and the USA, which were described in the articles of foreign peer-reviewed journals. Methodology and research methods. The methodological framework of the present research is based on systemic and active approaches. The general scientific methods of comparative analysis, synthesis and generalization were applied. The case study method was chosen as a basic tool of the research. Results. A brief background to the history of the genesis and development of project-based learning is given. The emphasized features of various approaches to project-based learning application are different in their orientation towards the solution of certain tasks, as well as in the possibilities for selecting goals and means for implementing specific projects. The case studies in Finnish universities are worked out for the development of social skills of students; however, students can choose both the goals and tools of project activities by themselves. The industrial project method has gained a wide popularity in France; the method is focused on the market, therefore, the choice of the goals and instruments is made on account of the needs of a particular employer. The experience of some Australian universities shows that the project-based learning is used to develop professional skills; the choice of instruments occurs with an orientation towards the latest technological advances. In China the key objectives of the project-based learning are various social projects (for example, environmental projects) which are declared at the governmental level. A broad range of versions of project-based learning have been practised for more than one decade in the leading United States universities, colleges and schools: social competences of students are formed by the means of this method; there is an introduction of innovative technologies into educational process; partnerships are build between educational organizations and market; comprehensive ecological programs are created; etc. However, at this stage, the project-based learning is singled out for serious criticism; the analysis of previous experience and the search for solutions are conducted in order to increase the efficiency of education and improve academic performance of students. Scientific novelty. In the Russian Pedagogy, this paper is the first attempt for understanding and generalizing the experience of international project-based learning application. Practical significance. The materials of the publication provide a possibility for education administrators and educators-practitioners to get familiarized with the educational potential and a variety of approaches of project-based learning in order to adopt the best and most appropriate methods towards the Russian realias and the Russian educational institutions.

Background and Aim: Based on relevant policies and literature, such as higher education planning at home and abroad, policies of the Chinese Ministry of Education, educational concepts, cognitive learning theories, project-based learning methods, teaching strategies, and teaching evaluations, researchers interviewed teachers and students on the current foundation of the programming design course. This research and development aimed 1 to study the background information focusing on the course components of the foundation of programming design course to enhance students’ computational thinking ability. 2) To develop the foundation of a programming design course based on Cognitive learning theory, combined with Project-based learning to enhance students’ computational thinking ability. 3) To determine the effectiveness of implementing the foundation of programming design course based on Cognitive learning theory combined with Project-based learning. Materials and Methods: The sample of this research was 30 first-year students (1 class) majoring in Network Engineering class 1, in the academic year 2024-2025 of Zhoukou Normal University, Henan Province, China. They are derived from using a cluster random sampling method. The experimental design adopted in this research was a group posttest-only design. The research instruments from each Phase of the study were as follows: Phase I: Interview forms for teachers and students on course-related questions. Phase II: 1) Foundation of programming design course based on Cognitive learning theory combined with Project-Based Learning. 2) 12 lesson plans for the foundation of the programming design course. 3) Evaluation form of computational thinking skills. 4) Learning achievement test. 5)Satisfaction questionnaire. The data were analyzed by using mean, standard deviation, and the one-sample t-test. Results: The results of this research were as follows: 1) The researcher reviewed the related documents about the Foundation of Programming Design Course and interviewed the 4 teachers and 30 students about problems of the Foundation of Programming Design Course, and the information gathered was used to develop the course. 2) The course development in six aspects: Course principles, Course objectives, Course content, Course instructional strategies, Course media and resources, and Course evaluation. 3) After implementing through Foundation of Programming Design Course based on Cognitive Learning Theory combined with Project-Based Learning, students’ computational thinking ability (Knowledge) was higher than the determined criterion of 70% at a significance level of 0.05; students’ computational thinking ability (Skills) was higher than the determined criterion of 70% at a significance level of .05. 4) The mean scores of students’ satisfaction after implementing the Foundation of Programming Design Course based on Cognitive Learning Theory combined with Project-Based Learning was 4.838 from a possible full mark of 5, and the standard deviation was 0.176, which was statistically higher than the criterion of 70% at the .05 level of statistical significance. Conclusion: This research confirms the effectiveness of the teaching model based on Cognitive learning theory combined with Project-Based Learning to enhance students' computational thinking ability.

Assessment in capstone engineering design courses is vital to engineering education programs. The capstone design course is the climax of design education and often the context for much of the assessment done in engineering degree programs. Capstone design course instructors’ admittedly low confidence for assessing student performance in these courses poses a crucial obstacle to the assessment process. A key issue is a lack of clear outcomes definition for engineering design and sound, defensible assessments for these outcomes. This paper draws from findings in design literature and from engineering design education experience to construct a conceptual model of engineering design that guides development of associated design learning outcomes and assessment of student achievements in design. A conceptual model of design is vital to design education, because it is one of three essential cornerstones— model, observation, and interpretation— for constructing assessments. In the context of an engineering classroom, design performance produces two different and complementary types of outcomes: learner development and solution development. Further, design is: open-ended, iterative, creative, collaborative, goal-driven, process-intensive, productfocused, customer-oriented, value-added, and constrained by society. Learner and solution development usually progresses from a state of students’ fragmented understanding and ideas to a more mature state of integrated understanding and design solutions. The proposed conceptual model for engineering design identifies four areas of performance that describe design: (1) personal capacity, (2) team processes, (3) solution requirements, and (4) solution assets. The first two characterize learner development and the latter two characterize solution development. Personal capacity is the designer’s development of skills which support technically sound and responsible design. Team processes address a team’s behaviors and productivity in design activities. Solution requirements address the team’s understanding of stakeholder needs and concerns. Solution assets encompass the value added, practicality, and impact of the design solution. These four performance areas are essential to design. They identify performances that develop over time, contribute to the success of design outcomes, and stimulate growth in one another for integrated enhancement of design performance. They also provide the basis for a versatile, comprehensive definition of engineering design performance that can guide instruction and can focus assessments in capstone engineering design courses.

English is considered as the major foreign language to learn in Indonesia. English is mainly taught in Indonesian classrooms as a required subject, but it is not given as a daily communication language. Dealing with reading comprehension of English texts, English teachers seem to look for the most effective way to teach reading skill to get reading comprehension. One learning model that can be applied as an alternative for teaching reading comprehension is Project-Based Learning (PBL). This research used a qualitative descriptive approach. The data taken were interview of the students based on their experiences in dealing with Project-Based Learning (PBL). The results of thematic analysis showed: (1) The students’ perceptions on the English teacher’s overview in explaining the application of Project-Based Learning (PBL); (2) The students’ perceptions on the English teacher’s explanation about the meaning of Project-Based Learning (PBL); (3) The students’ perceptions on the implementation of Project-Based Learning (PBL) in the classroom; (4) The students’ perceptions on the benefit of using Project-Based Learning (PBL) in the classroom; (5) The students’ perceptions on the difficulty of doing Project-Based Learning (PBL) task. The research findings and discussion revealed that those five perceptions were the students’ perceptions.

In undergraduate engineering programs, recent emphasis has been placed on a more holistic, interdisciplinary approach to engineering education. Some programs now teach product design within the context of the market, extending the curriculum to topics outside of scientific labs and computational analysis. However, it is unknown to what extent engineering students already understand the systems and contextual factors associated with product design, and also what characteristics or experiences have led students to these ways of thinking. This study analyzes survey and concept map data collected from 154 students in a third-year engineering design course. The aim is to understand how student backgrounds and experiences influence their mental models of product design. Data were gathered from surveys on student backgrounds and experiences, along with concept maps that were generated by the students at the beginning of a product design course. The concept maps were analyzed in a quantitative manner for structural and thematic elements. The findings show that several background attributes influence student conceptions of product design. Academic major appeared to have the largest impact on a variety of variables. Additionally, prior work experience, enrollment in a master’s program, and the presence of an engineering role model at home all showed significant impacts on design conceptions. By analyzing and understanding how the unique backgrounds of students lead to differences in thought, educators can adjust their curricula to more effectively teach design concepts to students of various backgrounds and experiences.