Supporting Collaborative Teams In Engineering Education

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.

Collaboration is highly emphasized in engineering design education. While it offers various advantages in fostering learning and professional development, it is imperative to acknowledge the adverse factors that can disrupt collaborative efforts. A key challenge in student teamwork is perceived contribution inequity, which often leads to frustration during collaboration and strains peer relationships. While effective team collaboration has been widely studied, little research has empirically delved into perceived contribution fairness or contribution equity from the lens of team diversity in engineering design. This study aims to investigate the complex relationship between team diversity (in terms of differences in gender composition and self-perceptions about one’s ability and interests) and contribution equity in student teams. Data were collected from 26 teams in a sophomore-level engineering design course across two semesters. Findings suggest that gender-diverse teams and teams with aligned design interests and teamwork preferences were more likely to exhibit higher levels of contribution equality. In contrast, variations in self-perceived engineering design self-efficacy (EDSE) and creative self-efficacy (CSE) showed no clear association with contribution fairness. These results highlight the importance of a strategic approach to team formation in which diversity dimensions are considered to promote equitable collaboration in engineering design 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.

This work reviews best practices in first-year engineering design courses at 40 universities across Canada and the United States. The authors reviewed the subject matter and instructional methods of these engineering design courses. University selection was based on prominence, level of engineering design content, and availability of data. The authors narrowed the scope of the study to seven Canadian programs and eight American programs for further investigation: University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of Manitoba, Queen’s University, University of Sherbrooke, University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, University of Colorado, Franklin W. Olin Engineering College, Harvey Mudd College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. The authors then identified six reoccurring themes in the methods of engineering design instruction: full-scale project, small-scale project, case study analysis, reverse engineering project, design tools and methods instruction, and integration. These themes are then discussed from the point of view of educators looking to develop first-year engineering design courses.

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.

In 1990, the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park initiated a reevaluation of the introductory design course in order to increase design in the classroom and to recruit, retain, and graduate more women and underrepresented minorities. The resulting course, ENES 100, has been highly successful. A High School Teacher-in-Residence program was initiated in 1995. Sue Schwartz, a Physics teacher from Montgomery County's Paint Branch High School began a residency at the School of Engineering to learn and be a partner in the first year Introduction to Engineering Design course. Throughout the two semesters she actively participated in 4 sections of the course and interacted with all aspects of the freshman program. A major outcome of the interaction was a well defined, detailed, year-long high school curriculum in engineering design. That curriculum has had a pilot test throughout the 1996-97 academic year. The high school curriculum in engineering design and the results of the pilot study is the focus of the presentation.

Over the past several years increasing emphasis has been placed on the development of data information literacy (DIL) skills for engineering researchers to comply with funding requirements and to facilitate data sharing, reuse, and preservation. These efforts have been largely aimed at faculty members and graduate students, and to some extent undergraduate students in preparation for their roles as future researchers. However, little attention has been directed at developing DIL skills in undergraduate engineering students engaged in non-research activities, such as service-learning design projects that integrate instruction and community service. This work-in-progress paper reports on using service-learning pedagogy to integrate DIL into engineering design education. Preliminary analysis of student journal entries and instructor observations are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to consider how to use the e-Learning system in the engineering design courses at Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT). The courses consist of two levels: Engineering Design I (ED I) and Engineering Design II (ED II). The former is taken by all freshmen during the second quarter, and the latter is taken by all sophomores during the sixth quarter. KIT's calendar has three 10-week quarters per year. The courses require students to participate in a team project from the problem discovery stage to the concept design stage. As the first e-Learning trial in the engineering design course, we introduce the collaboration-communication function of the e-Learning system to our ED I class. In this paper, we describe the students' activities in each engineering design process in situations where students can use the e-Learning system.

The purpose of this study is to consider how to use an electronic learning (e-learning) system in engineering design. An e-learning trial in an engineering design course was introduced as an online self-study module in order to support learning outside of the classroom at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology. This paper contains a description of the e-learning system and the related student activities and teamwork.

First Year Design courses are commonplace in many engineering curriculums. Although the focus of these courses typically revolves around introducing students to various multistep design processes as well as improving student skills in written and oral communication techniques; they can be limited in replicating the experience of working in a real world interdisciplinary design environment. In an industrial setting, design teams are comprised of members that have the complementary skills that are necessary to complete the relevant task. There are many tools, like CATME, available to replicate this process of designing student teams based on complementary skills. Prior studies have illustrated that, although assigned teams can improve the experience for some, it can also drastically diminish the student experience for others. This work focuses on the assignment of student design teams based on both complementary skills as well as shared interests. As part of the common first year engineering curriculum at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Ma, students participate on the Introduction to Engineering Design course. This work studies two years-worth of data on the impact of assigned groups in these courses, as they pertain to overall student experience. For this, various sections of the course adopted one of the following structures for group assignments: 1) student selected, 2) skills-based instructor assigned, 3) skills and student interest based instructor assigned. Written feedback and peer assessment, based on ABET Outcome D: Ability to function in multidisciplinary teams, were collected from the students. Our analysis focuses on the process of intelligently assigning student groups and the techniques that can improve the overall student experience. The authors hope to engage in a spirited discussion on the merits of assigned student design teams as well as propose an alternative approach for instructors planning to engage students in interdisciplinary project based courses.

The purpose of this work is to examine how project management is perceived in the engineering undergraduate curriculum at the University of Guelph across its four-year series of design courses, and to gather insight into the skills, elements, and level of mastery required. As a Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board graduate attribute, project management is taught in all engineering programs. The instructor perspective is explored through interviews with instructors that have taught engineering design courses. The instructor responses are analyzed for insights related to the effectiveness of the curriculum for the development of project management skills. This work is the first component a larger study that will examine and compare the findings with the views of students and alumni of the program. The results of these interviews aim to provide insight to engineering programs related to the level of mastery expected of graduating students, and future activities to explore for the purpose of closing gaps that might exist between graduate competencies and industry needs to better equip students with the skills of future leaders.

In the context of teaching design, engineers often have a strong preference for problem-based learning because the skills they are trying to teach are intrinsic to the solving of design problems. The proliferation of problem-based learning (PBL) in capstone and now cornerstone engineering design courses is well supported by industry and faculty and the trend has been towards seeing more PBL in engineering design courses. This paper explores the basic selection of engineering design problems and presents a fairly simple dilemma: the skills that are required to solve a problem are not necessarily the skills that are taught by the problem if the problem is truly open-ended. This paper presents the idea of using engineering problems that are carefully constructed simulacra of real-world problems with built in scaffolding to create PBL experiences for students that are educationally complete and meaningful. This paper presents examples from two courses developed at the University of Manitoba based on this approach, outcomes of and responses to the course layout, and ideas for how this model can be extended to other courses or programs.

In this study, we investigated the effects of students’ participation in a collaborative, project-based engineering design course on their domain knowledge, interests, and strategic processing. Participants were 70 college seniors working in teams on a design project of their choosing. Their declarative, procedural, and principled knowledge, along with their domain interest and their interest in select roles within that domain were tested at the outset of the semester and at its conclusions. Findings indicated that this course contributed to a rise in students’ declarative knowledge, but not their procedural or principled knowledge of engineering design. Further, there was no significant change in students’ personal interest in the domain over the semester, and their role interests were not associated with their demonstrated knowledge in the field at posttest. Implications for the perceived effectiveness of learning environments consisting of peer collaboration and relevant problems on students’ academic development are considered.

As a follow-up to our previous paper on the successes and limitations of using Rube Goldberg machines in a first year engineering design course, in this paper, we outline how we addressed some of the limitations from our first attempt to use Rube Goldberg machines in our course.As pointed out in our previous paper, the first year engineering curriculums of many engineering programs are heavily loaded with science classes and have very little exposure to engineering.Engineering schools must find ways to introduce students to engineering in a fun, engaging fashion.For the past two years, we have been using Rube Goldberg machines to help achieve this goal.Our first year design and communications course attempts to engage students by challenging them to design and build a working Rube Goldberg machine as part of a group project.By working to achieve specific design goals that are subject to constraints, students get to work on a miniengineering project that is fun, creative, and challenging.The long-term goal of the Rube Goldberg Experiment is twofold: (1) to give first year engineering students a positive engineering design experience in their very first semester and (2) to develop a culture of anticipation in Grade 12 students who might be considering an engineering education at the University of Regina.In this paper, we outline changes made to our approach that address shortcomings identified from our first semester and provide results from student feedback, which demonstrate a positive response to the project.

To adequately prepare engineering students for their professional career, educational institutions offer projects in which students collaboratively solve engineering design problems. It is known from research these projects can lead to a variety of learning outcomes and student experiences. However, studies that provide insights in the influence of different features of an educational design are rare. In the current study we use Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as analytical framework to understand how different elements of an educational design affect students’ experience. Additionally, we use the notion of contradictions to identify opportunities for structural course improvement. Focus groups were conducted with 12 Master students in Aerospace Engineering, that participated in a collaborative engineering design course. During the course, students applied Systems Engineering (SE) and Concurrent Engineering (CE) and worked in the Collaborative Design Laboratory (CDL), which is a state-of-the-art facility that holds a variety of industry relevant tools. It was found that students valued the guidance of their coach and experts, co-located collaboration and the freedom to structure their own process. However, they perceived challenges with regard to adoption of tools in the CDL, sharing their progress with their supervisor, coordination of collaborative efforts and scheduling issues. An analysis using CHAT revealed what contradictions caused these challenges. Finally, recommendations are given on how course structure can be structurally improved.