Integrated 2D Design in the Curriculum: Effectiveness of Early Cross-Subject Engineering Challenges

Multidisciplinary engineering design is difficult in the undergraduate years. It is particularly so in the early Freshman and Sophomore years, since the students have not enrolled in a breadth of subjects. Multidisciplinary problems are often left to latter years, thereby leaving the students with an incomplete picture of how course subject matters relate and fit in a larger view of engineering and design. A novel approach to multi-disciplinary engineering education was instituted in the Freshman and Sophomore years at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. During a particular term, all courses simultaneously attacked a common design problem. The courses stopped coursework for one dedicated week and instead simultaneously worked on the design challenge problem engaging the subject matter of those courses. Herein this is referred to as the 2D design challenge, where the design problem is multidisciplinary, but exclusively restricted to the domains of the courses being taught. This research effort finds that the approach generated highly effective learning on the multidisciplinary nature of design problems. Results also include a statistically significant impact on student perceptions of their ability to solve multidisciplinary design problems. As an example, courses in biology, thermodynamics, differential equations, and software with controls were merged in a design challenge problem of developing a perishable food delivery system composed of unrefrigerated unmanned ground vehicles. It is recommended that successful 2D challenges require instructors to establish a-priori a chain of requirements linking the design activity in each course. Effective execution of a 2D design challenge ensures that the design problem has co-dependent requirements from each discipline. These requirements cannot be independently determined in isolation. This then allows for creative interdisciplinary solutions to be developed. Introduction: Multidisciplinary Engineering Education An observed difficulty in engineering curriculum is finding means to educate students in multidisciplinary engineering design problems. Modern-world engineering problems are often described as no longer solely within a single discipline. For example, traditional mechanical engineering designs often now involve software, controls, electronics and perhaps biology, etc. One primary difficulty in posing multidisciplinary design problems in the undergraduate curriculum is that within the student body of a course there is variety in the past courses and experiences. An instructor can only expect students to have taken the pre-requisite courses, which thereby limits the range of multiple disciplines that a project can cover. Further, instructors from these other disciplines are typically not available during the course project for learning and consulting on issues from these other disciplines. Therefore, most engineering curricula wait until the later undergraduate years to begin exposing the larger multidisciplinary problem space to students, through project courses with instructors from multiple disciplines. Unfortunately, this approach delays big-picture understanding of design and how the subject area materials learned by the students integrate. P ge 24763.2 This paper presents the approach and data on the positive efficacy resulting when students are provided short, one-week, design challenge problems to exercise disciplinary content from all courses a student is enrolled during a term. This problem type is herein referred to as a 2D design challenge problem. The activity replaces all coursework at the university for an entire week. A literature review was conducted to determine if such an activity is likely to be of value to students. Introduction: Related Work Others have reported on the need and progress for incorporating design into the engineering curriculum, notably into the traditional engineering courses. It is also well established that active learning improves student outcomes as supported here. Wood et al report a survey of global engineering educators indicating 90% seek more active learning in their courses. Knight reports on the many factors that explain the increased outcomes from active learning compared to traditional lecture and problem set based learning. These comparative factors include: the observation that lectures are not conducive to good listening given the inability to actively listen (e.g., repeat back what was spoken), critical thinking is not exercised when following the logical progressive derivation approach of lectures, the human limited attention span of 10-15 minutes, the repeated nature of lecture and course book material, and the focus of most lecture materials on the abstraction phase of learning. There are also reports on efforts to integrate multiple disciplines in the early undergraduate years through small-scale projects, similar to the effort discussed here. Roedel et al. report on a Freshman year effort to integrate calculus, physics and English through projects lasting over 5 weeks. These include a catapult, a Trebuchet, and a bungee drop mechanism. The pedagogical challenge included keeping the project material difficulty aligned over the time period with student material being taught. Beaudoin and Ollis report on efforts to develop short, 3 day design projects on common technical products, including the bar code, photocopier, water purifier and optical fibers. Hussman and Jensen report on using a small autonomous vehicle competition as a motivator for designing a UAV to which several courses provide necessary engineering skills and understanding. Material to contribute to the design of the UAV became an integral aspect of the course subject matter. Wood et al discuss effective practices in designettes, similar to charettes in architecture studies, or small-scale design problems inserted at arbitrary points in the engineering curriculum. Guidelines are presented for effectiveness, these supported development for the guidelines also use in this effort. The projects aim to engage and motivate students with individual confidence in the learned materials. Gomez-Puente et al provide a literature review of design based learning of engineering subjects, and how reports of such courses relate or not to good professional design practice. Hassan et al report on a multi-course methodology to coordinate all projects undertaken throughout the undergraduate years to build throughout toward solving industrial problems. Chesler et al. report on an introduction to design course where they make use of virtual epistemic games focused on design trade-offs and client conflict management. In groups of 5, they solve the design projects in 11 hours. Page 24763.3 The approach here is less ambitious in curriculum coordination and planning structure than any of these efforts; rather this paper discusses a multidisciplinary experience targeting a single term, orchestrated in the courses offered during that term. This is simpler in scope, requiring more limited coordination of four courses rather than an entire sequence of courses. Introduction: Pedagogical Objectives The pedagogical foundation for the 2D Design Activity rests in the Kolb learning model, which describes the complete progressive cycle of learning experiences. As shown in Figure 1, this model is based on four fundamental progressive experiences needed for learning: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. In the Kolb model of learning, the goal for any course or teaching activity is to follow this progression of student led learning, and to act as a facilitator in the natural inquisitive exploration that will occur in this progression. Figure 1: Kolb’s learning model. For engineering analysis courses, the 2D Design Activity is ideal to provide either the concrete experience or the active experimentation phase in the Kolb learning model of the engineering material. For such active learning progression, the Kolb model generally starts with a concrete experience in the subject matter. Without benefit of the understanding of the disciplinary course material, the student attempts to solve the design problem anyway. Students usually attempt a trial and error experimental approach, typically with less than ideal results. For example, in the thermodynamics course, students might be asked to design a cooler to keep perishables cold. They can do this by generating concepts using structural and insulating materials, but are unclear how thick to make such elements before being trained in heat transfer modeling. Trial and error is used. After such an experience, the Kolb model follows immediately with a reflective observation of that experience. In the thermodynamics example, instructors can reflect with the students on the Concrete Experience Reflective Observation Abstraction and Conceptualization Active Experimentation Processing Spectrum Sp ec tr umion and Conceptualization Active Experimentation Processing Spectrum Spectrum