Design in engineering education and practice

This paper reports on a new core graduate course that has been developed for the recently established Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). The course is focused on preparing future engineering faculty members and practitioners to teach engineering design as well as how to function more effectively in industry design environments. Material related to theories of student learning and appropriate pedagogical approaches to teaching an open-ended subject such as engineering design are included. Having successfully completed this course, students are able to describe engineering design process and compare and contrast design across engineering and non-engineering disciplines. Students develop a syllabus for a design course in their own discipline, including assignments and projects. They also learn about effective project management and are able to characterize and demonstrate effective means of teaching/coaching/mentoring of various design projects. As future educators, students are able to describe the ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) requirements for design courses (Capstone, etc.), describe and demonstrate various theories of learning and pedagogy, and are able to navigate the course design and approval process. Descriptions of student mentoring of K-12 design teams in the FIRST LEGO® League competition are also provided.