Synthesis of teaching and evaluation activities for development of professional skills in a capstone design course

Abstract

ABET's transition from content-based engineering accreditation criteria to an outcomes-based model is now complete. The onus for defining curricular content has shifted from ABET ('one size fits all') to the program's faculty ('stakeholder-driven continuous improvement'). This new-found autonomy in determining curricular content has created varied 'localized' interpretations and implementations. It comes with its own set of challenges. Heightened emphasis has been placed on development and documentation of professional skills (aka 'soft' skills) such as oral and written communication, team work, lifelong learning, and global and societal issues. Teaching, assessing and documenting soft skills necessitates a new synthesis of topics. In this paper, we describe our experiences in a capstone design course for mechanical engineers, our transitivity matrix mapping ABET outcomes to classroom implementation methods, and our approach to capture and document our progress and achievements. We discuss our principal process mechanisms; including the student portfolio, which is useful for defining and demonstrating a number of ABET competencies. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.