CCLI Phase II: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Systematic Ideation Curriculum Effectiveness Investigation & Deployment to Enhance Design Learning

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Engineering - Other (59)Design is the essence of engineering and creativity is a requisite skill for effective design. Design often begins with idea generation, typically brainstorming; however, brainstorming often falls short when used as the main vehicle for creativity with undergraduate students because it relies on the designers' abilities to look inward for inspiration and it requires designers to have experience in the field. In this project, three methods are being examined to determine their impact on improving the ideation performance of undergraduate engineering students. The first method is TRIZ, which is a systematic approach for the generation of innovative designs to seemingly intractable problems. TRIZ was first developed in Russia and is based on the analysis of thousands of patents that illustrate numerous solution patterns from diverse disciplines. The second method of ideation being explored in this project is freehand sketching and the third method is technology-enabled design journaling. These three methods are being provided, either alone or in combination, to students in various design-oriented courses at the partnering institutions and the resulting design solutions are being analyzed for creativity. The methods developed through this research have the potential to transform undergraduate engineering design education. Results from the project are being broadly disseminated to the engineering education community to inform the inclusion of creativity among undergraduate engineering curricula across the country.