A new vision for engineering design instruction: On the innovative six course design sequence of James Madison University

Abstract

The rapid pace of technological progress and future challenges for globalization, sustainability, complexity, and adaptability of engineering professionals call for a paradigm shift in engineering design education. The School of Engineering at James Madison University, which is graduating its inaugural engineering class in May 2012, has been developed from the ground up to not be an engineering discipline-specific program, but to provide students training with an emphasis on engineering design, systems thinking, and sustainability. Our vision is to produce crossdisciplinary engineer versatilists. One important place in the curriculum where this is achieved is the six course (10-credit) design sequence which is the spine of the curriculum. Starting with the sophomore design courses (Engineering Design I and II), the focus is on teaching students the process of design including the phases of planning, concept development, system-level design, detail design, as well as testing and refinement. Grounded on a novel and multidimensional problem-based learning (PBL) pedagogy, students also learn and apply engineering design tools and methods to a two semester, real-world, problem-based, service learning project. This pedagogy continues in the capstone design experience (Engineering Design III through VI) where students are provided with important instruction concurrently with their capstone design experience, in which they work in groups with one or more faculty advisors on a four semester, two-year project. In this four-semester sequence, students start by applying the engineering design process as well as the design tools and methods learned during the sophomore design courses to their new projects, but also are exposed to a variety of advanced design topics and design challenges that aid is helping students develop their individual design process and a design process that meets the needs of the design problem. Our vision in teaching the engineering design process is to enable mastery learning through directed and non-directed, group-based and independent, simple and complex, structured and unstructured, problem-based learning experiences that incrementally expose and reiterate the design process. Our goal is to teach our students to be adaptive problem solvers and have cognitive flexibility when solving problems-an essential skill for these future engineers to learn if they are going work toward developing a sustainable society. The following overarching attributes build this vision: (1) breadth and depth, (2) balance between theory and practice, (3) balance between qualitative and quantitative reasoning, (4) developmental instruction in systems thinking and sustainability, (5) integrating cross-disciplinarity perspectives, (6) process and not just content (e.g. cognitive processes), and (7) bridging engineering skills with professional skills such as communication, project management, team and collaborative work, ethics, etcetera. In this paper, we present how each course in the six-course sequence builds off the prior providing moderate instruction over a long period of time and building developmentally on prior learning outcomes, all while in the context of authentic and meaningful PBL experiences. It is such skills and attitudes that students learn and practice over a long period of time (with regular support from and collaboration with faculty) that are critical in students taking ownership of and tailoring to their own abilities and design habits. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.