Learning to Design: the Continuum of Engineering Education
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| Audience/Grade: | 1 - High School Senior |
| Discipline(s): |
Design Engineering Education Research General Engineering, Engineering Science Mechanical Engineering |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Educational Research Paper |
| Author(s): |
Malcolm Welch |
| Description: | Abstract: "The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which curriculum initiatives in school-based design and technology education and undergraduate engineering education are converging in their intent to provide students with `designerly' ways of knowing. The literature that describes the nature of design and designing, the nature and purposes of design and technology education in elementary and secondary schools, and the place of design in engineering education serves to frame the second part of the paper. This will describe two curriculum initiatives, one elementary and one secondary, which introduce a powerful pedagogy for teaching, learning and assessment in technology education centred on both designing and making products. The resonance of this pedagogy with contemporary trends in engineering education are explored and discussed in the third and final section of the paper. Overall, the paper speculates on the question: Is design education for engineering a continuum?" |
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| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | Design education elementary education secondary education curriculum development |
| Is Component of: |
Special Issue is on Pre-college engineering |
| Usage Tip | |
| Related ABET Criteria: |
(c) Design a system, component, or process |
| Use of Resource: |
Conclusions: "In his now famous public address given at the 1955 autumn meeting of the National Academy of Sciences entitled The Value of Science, Richard Feynman suggested that when students arrive at the university, it `is too late for them to get the spirit [of science]' [45, p. 244]. Is this true for engineers and engineering? Is the arrival at university too late for students to `catch onto' and understand the importance of design and designing? If so, then perhaps the time has arrived when all levels of design education must join together to participate and collaborate in developing Harrison's continuum of design education for engineers. Engineering has traditionally drawn its students from a mathematics and science background; specialized, mainly convergent thinking subjects. Yet the tacit knowledge that young people develop before this age and the creativity and divergent thinking skills that they have acquired and developed as part of design and technology education are as important to the future of the engineering profession as the highly articulated theoretical understanding of control systems, materials and structures that are regarded as its traditional foundations. This paper has shown that many elements of a design education continuum exist. Earlier sections of this paper described how design education has become a central component of elementary and secondary school practice. At undergraduate engineering level, many equally exciting changes are occurring. Educating students to become capable of designerly thinking, that is, students who can intervene creatively in the made world to improve the quality of life, must be a shared objective of all involved in design education. It will be these students who become a design literate public, what Baynes [2005] refers to as `consumer/ designers'. A `design education continuum' calls for close collaboration between educators at all levels. After all, some of these consumer/designers will become engineers." |
| Difficulty: |
Medium |
| Interactivity Level: |
Very low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 2007 |
| Platform/Format: |
Cross Platform |
| Cost: |
Not free |
| Download URL: | http://www.ijee.dit.ie/latestissues/Vol23-1/12_ijee1886.pdf |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
International Journal of Engineering Education
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