Engineering Education Commons^™

Polysemy In Design Review Conversations, Georgi V. Georgiev, Toshiharu Taura

Design Thinking Research Symposium

This paper examines the role of polysemy, defined as the quality of having multiple meanings, in design review conversations. It examines the polysemy, particularly of nouns, involved in a dataset of design review conversations with reference to design ideas. The purpose is to determine whether polysemy is related to successful development of design ideas and more creative design outcomes. The results show that the polysemy of nouns involved in the conversations of the finally developed, successful, design ideas exceeds in the most cases the average polysemy involved in the conversations pertaining to the unsuccessful design ideas. Furthermore, the polysemy of …

Making Design Pedagogical Content Knowledge Visible Within Design Reviews, Robin Adams, David Radcliffe, Tiago Forin, Mel Chua

Design Thinking Research Symposium

Design pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the content-specific specialized teacher knowledge that connects the how (pedagogical knowledge) and what (content knowledge) of teaching design. In this study, we make visible the design PCK in three student design reviews: choreography, undergraduate industrial design, and mechanical engineering. We use cognitive apprenticeship and teaching-as-improvisation frameworks to characterize PK, and design judgment, design task strategies, and process management strategies to characterize CK. We identify and describe four patterns of design PCK: scaffolded articulation, driving for meaning and guidance, breaking the 4^th wall to create a teaching moment, and “suggest don’t tell”. Theoretical implications …

Influences Of Feedback Interventions On Student Concept Generation And Development Practices, Seda Yilmaz, Shanna Daly

Design Thinking Research Symposium

Design teaching in many disciplines relies on feedback as a primary way for students and instructors to communicate. Our work focused on identifying feedback types in three different design disciplines (dance choreography, industrial design, and mechanical engineering) and analyzing how those feedback types encouraged students to take convergent or divergent paths with their design ideas. We then compared feedback types and encouragement of convergence or divergence across the three disciplines. Our findings showed many common types of feedback used across the three disciplines, regardless of variance in context and expectations. However, the findings also revealed a high frequency of feedback …

Describing Creativity In Design Across Disciplines, Llew Mann, Yasemin Tekmen Araci

Design Thinking Research Symposium

Creativity is an essential aspect of design thinking. Being able to describe creativity and creative processes is important for developing future designers. While much research has been undertaken describing creativity in design, there is very little investigating how creativity and creative thinking varies across disciplines. A coding scheme involving six separate codes was developed initially from the literature, refined and then used to describe how creativity and creative thinking was apparent in the DTRS 10 datasets of Junior Industrial Design, Graduate Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, Choreography and Entrepreneurship. Based on this analysis, conclusions on how creativity and creative thinking varied …

Integrating Emotional Attachment And Sustainability In Electronic Product Design, Alex Lobos, Callie W. Babbitt

Articles

Current models for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products encourage frequent product replacement with newer versions that offer only minor incremental improvements. This pattern, named planned obsolescence, diminishes user experience and shortens product lifespan. This paper presents the conceptual basis for a two-part integrated approach to combating planned obsolescence in ICT devices. First, design for emotional attachment, which creates products that users enjoy, value, and use for longer. Second, technological adaptability, which anticipates product upgrades and repairs as new technologies emerge. A model interdisciplinary design course in industrial design and sustainability, also described herein, trains students to apply this approach …

Teaching Technical Engineering Courses From A Christian Perspective: Two Examples, Charles C. Adams

Pro Rege

Engineering professors, like those of the natural sciences, usually teach by breaking the subject matter into parts, that is, courses and activities that are logically abstract from each other. While together comprising a coherent whole, those individual parts too easily foster abstractionism, the view that such subjects as calculus, fluid mechanics, engineering design, and engineering ethics “really are” separable from one another. Such a view militates against a Christian perspective of engineering, technology, and reality in general by replacing the organic wholeness of life before the face of God with the compartmentalization that is characteristic of modern science and naturalism. …

By Design: Ethics, Theology, And The Practice Of Engineering, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Both engineering and human living take place in a messy world, one chock full of unknowns and contingencies. "Design reasoning" is the way engineers cope with real-world contingency. Because of the messiness, books about engineering design cannot have "ideal solutions" printed in the back in the same way that mathematics textbooks can. Design reasoning does not produce a single, ideally correct answer to a given problem but rather generates a wide variety of rival solutions that vie against each other for their relative level of "satisfactoriness." A reasoning process analogous to design is needed in ethics. Since the realm of …

Perceptions Measurement Of Professional Certifications To Augment Buffalo State College Baccalaureate Technology Programs, As A Representative American Postsecondary Educational Institution, Christopher N. Brown

Industrial Technology Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess, measure, and analyze whether voluntary, nationally-recognized professional certification credentials were important to augment technology programs at Buffalo State College (BSC), as a representative postsecondary baccalaureate degree-granting institution offering technology curricula. Six BSC undergraduate technology programs were evaluated within the scope of this study: 1.) Computer Information Systems; 2.) Electrical Engineering, Electronics; 3.) Electrical Engineering, Smart Grid; 4.) Industrial Technology; 5.) Mechanical Engineering; and 6.) Technology Education. This study considered the following three aspects of the problem: a.) postsecondary technology program enrollment and graduation trends; b.) the value/awareness of professional certifications to employers …

A Systems View Of Time-Dependent Ethical Decisions, Hamid A. Rafizadeh, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Every ethical situation has a "system" characteristic with a group of human and nonhuman elements linked in a variety of interactions and interdependencies. The system allows the elements to act in part or as a whole towards achieving a spectrum of goals, objectives, or ends. The systems view asserts that any local and bipolar understanding of an ethical situation would be deficient as it would neglect certain interactions and interdependencies as well as overlook differing orientations of agents towards different goals and objectives. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for a systems-based view of ethics.

The Theological Origins Of Engineering, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Knowledge of our roots can sometimes help us figure out how we ought to proceed. Many claim that engineering began in ancient antiquity with the Egyptian pyramids, Archimedes' inventions, or the Roman aqueducts. Others give contemporary engineering a more recent history, tracing its origins to the Industrial Revolution or the Enlightenment. Yet what is often overlooked is the fact that contemporary engineering owes part of its identity to medieval monasticism.

The advantage of remembering this history is the bearing it has on the questions "What is engineering for?" and "How ought engineering be practiced?"

Michael Davis makes the claim that, …

A Catholic And Marianist Engineering Education, Kevin P. Hallinan, Margaret Pinnell

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The School of Engineering at the University of Dayton (UD), a Catholic and Marianist University, boasts large enrollments of 1,300 undergraduate and 350 graduate students out of a total of 7,000 undergraduates and 3,000 graduate students. It also boasts a faculty very active in research, which, under the umbrella of the University of Dayton Research Institute, is funded at a level of $100 million per year.

In the past decade, the University of Dayton has sought to better articulate the impact of its Catholic and Marianist traditions, and faculty have been challenged to embody these traditions. University mission statements and …

Introduction To Product Design And Innovation: A Cross Disciplinary Mini Curriculum, Patricia Backer, Seth Bates

Faculty Publications

For the past two years, faculty at San Jose State University (SJSU) have implemented a three- semester minicurriculum in Product Design and Manufacturing. The project follows the Project- Based Learning (PBL) model and is central to the Certificate Program in Product Design in the Mechanical Engineering Department, the Manufacturing Systems concentration in the Department of Aviation and Technology, and the Industrial Design Program in the School of Art and Design. Students in the three courses in the minicurriculum face design challenges while being instructed about the constraints of manufacturability. In each course, students develop three to four products. All products …

Establishing An Entertainment Engineering Curriculum, Robert F. Boehm, Joe Aldridge, Brackley Frayer

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

A new, multidisciplinary program in Entertainment Engineering and Design is being established at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The name of the program could be defined in a number of ways because few programs of this type exist and the field is so broad. Our emphasis is on the application of technology to enhance the entertainment value of live shows and rides. Steps being taken to establish this program are outlined, starting with an undergraduate minor and moving to an undergraduate major. The role of entertainment-based businesses in the development of this new program is also described.

Effectiveness Of A Multimedia General Education Course, Patricia Backer

Faculty Publications

The current paper describes the design, development, and evaluation of self-paced multimedia modules that are used in an advanced General Education course at San Jose State University. The design and development cycle of these modules began in 1994 and continues to this date. The General Education course, Technology and Civilization (TECH 198), is designed to introduce students to the realm of history and usage of technology in society and to increase their awareness of both the uncertainties as well as the promises of the utilization of technology as a creative human enterprise. During the summer session 1999, the completed modules …

Civilizing The Civil Engineer: How A History Course Can Serve As A Curriculum Capstone, John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

Beginning in 1989 and then every other year thereafter, a unique course dealing specifically with the history of civil engineering has been taught to all civil engineering majors at the University of Dayton. What has evolved over time -- in response to student feedback, ongoing reform in the curriculum, and a maturing of faculty expertise -- is a course in the history of civilization that has as its major focus the discipline of civil engineering.

In reality, what happens in the classroom is a far broader learning experience than either the disciplines of history or civil engineering could provide standing …

Automobiles, Computers And Assault Rifles: The Value-Ladenness Of Technology And The Engineering Curriculum, Charles C. Adams

Pro Rege

Charles Adams received the 1989 Mikol Award for this essay, which was originally presented to the North Midwest Section of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Perceived Importance Of Identified Duties And Tasks In The Area Of Design/Drafting Management, John Edward Shultz

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of the study, was to determine the importance of identified duties to the career success of a newly hired design/drafting employee aspiring to become a supervisor or manager as perceived by design/drafting managers and university professors. An opinionnaire was developed which consisted of 141 tasks which were grouped into 13 general duties. The 13 duties represented the job functions for design/drafting managers. The opinionnaire was validated utilizing a jury of experts consisting of eight design/drafting managers and five university professors. It was then mailed to the membership of the American Design Drafting Association (ADDA) who identified themselves as …