First-Year Engineering: An Iterative Design Process -- Monica Cardella

Design is what designers do when they design the design. Helping students begin to develop design knowledge, skills and strategies is a key focus of Purdue's First-Year Engineering program. Based on what we know from the growing design literature basis, we place particular emphasis on problem scoping/problem framing, generating many design concepts rather than fixating on a single concept, and the role of iteration in design. However, in designing learning experiences to develop students' "design thinking" competencies, the course instructional team also engages in an iterative and human-centered design process characterized by the exploration of many design concepts, many rounds of revisions, revisiting our problem statement, and eliciting input and feedback from our students. This talk presents our most recent design concepts: our use of video modules as part of a flipped classroom model, benefits associated with the use of the online modules, planned changes to the modules and overall flipped classroom model, other technology-enabled pedagogical methods and our approaches to assessment.