Establishing engineering design competencies for freshman/sophomore students

Selecting a Model for Freshman Engineering Design

“…4 The coalitions and partnerships that included freshman de-sign in their mission or outcomes were the NSF Synthesis Coalition, the NSF Engineering Coalition for Schools of Excellence in Education and Leadership (ECSEL), the NSF Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUC-CEED), the NSF Gateway Coalition, the NSF Foundation Coalition, the NSF Engineering Academy of Southern New England (Academy) Coalition, and the Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) partnership. 5,6 Communication with each NSF coalition led to the conclusion that any meaningful effort to integrate design into freshman engineering would require a significant investment of space, equipment, supplies, and/or faculty resources. Many of the models for teaching design courses required partnerships with industry or foundations that could serve as a source of non-university investment.…”

Developing curriculum desing expertise through teacher design teams

“…An important step to tackle the identified problem is to identify possible solutions (Richey et al, 2001), for instance by using brainstorming techniques (e.g., Christensen & Osguthorpe, 2004;Crain et al, 1995). Prior studies in which teachers fulfilled the role of designer demonstrated that teachers often start designing by generating various ideas about the curriculum materials (Coenders, 2010).…”

“…Process-related skills -teachers' ability to plan and manage design processes. Project management includes the knowledge and skills to coordinate the team activities and to identify the progress of the design process (Crain, Davis, Calkins, & Gentili, 1995;Lunenberg, 2002;Richey et al, 2001;Seels & Glasgow, 1991).…”

“…Curriculum design consists of analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation activities, which are operationalised in specific tactics. Six types of knowledge and skills, based on activities in existing curriculum and instructional design models, are identified as relevant for teachers for enacting design processes (Huizinga, 2009 Therefore, teachers as designers are expected to formulate the aim of the project and identify the problem that needs to be tackled (Crain et al, 1995;Lunenberg, 2002;Richey et al, 2001). Furthermore, various ideas have to be generated in order to tackle the identified problem (Crain et al, 1995).…”

“…Six types of knowledge and skills, based on activities in existing curriculum and instructional design models, are identified as relevant for teachers for enacting design processes (Huizinga, 2009 Therefore, teachers as designers are expected to formulate the aim of the project and identify the problem that needs to be tackled (Crain et al, 1995;Lunenberg, 2002;Richey et al, 2001). Furthermore, various ideas have to be generated in order to tackle the identified problem (Crain et al, 1995). During the design process itself teachers are expected to systematically apply tactics to tackle the problem, by making well-founded decisions (based on insights from theory and practice), evaluating the relevancy, consistency, practicality and effectiveness of the curriculum materials (Thijs & Van den Akker, 2009) and by implementing the curriculum materials in practice (Gustafson, 2002;Kerr, 1981;Kessels, 1999;Lunenberg, 2002;Richey et al, 2001;Seels & Glasgow, 1991 …”