Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Facilitating Design Thinking through Cases

该项目的目标是通过案例研究向第一代和代表性不足的学生介绍设计思维，帮助他们从课堂和实验室学习过渡到工程顶点设计，并最终进入工程领域的职业生涯。这些案例研究将作为加州大学默塞德分校机械工程课程新讨论部分的一部分实施，这是一所西班牙裔服务机构，超过60%的本科生是他们家庭中第一个上大学的人，超过一半的学生来自双语或非英语家庭，超过75%的学生获得经济援助。该项目也是加州大学默塞德分校机械工程副教授和密歇根州立大学教育心理学副教授之间的首次合作，前者教授设计，熟悉学生面临的挑战，但没有接受过正规的教育培训，后者教授案例研究和工程教育。该项目将对参与试点项目的加州大学默塞德分校学生产生直接影响，通过传播案例研究和评估他们的成功，产生更长期和更广泛的影响，并对那些将相互学习专业知识并将其作为未来合作教育创新的第一步的项目负责人产生影响。工程专业是一个复杂且结构不良的领域，众所周知，工程师成功完成其职业使命所需的技能组合比传统工程课程所磨练的技能要广泛得多。这是促进和培养工科学生设计思维的前提，也是本研究的重点，该研究利用体验情境来培养未来工程师所需的属性。具体来说，这个项目是基于这样一个假设：在顶点设计课程之前，让学生参加一个基于案例的课程，将使他们在设计课上表现得更好，并为现实世界的工程做好准备。这一假设将通过将现有的机械部件设计课程中针对特定部件的授课整合到案例研究中来探讨，目的是向学生介绍设计思维。更具体地说，设计思维将通过案例研究来教授，这些案例研究涉及斯坦福设计过程的五个阶段：移情、定义、构思、原型和测试。考虑到设计思维的复杂认知本质，这种结构化的方法将允许学生产生和发展他们的解决方案/想法，同时帮助他们应对设计思维的挑战。该项目的主要目标是：(1)发展PI在嵌入案例研究方面的专业知识，以教授设计思维；(2)建立一个案例研究库，利用设计思维扩展工程学生对问题提出和解决方案开发的看法；(3)评估基于案例的教学在不同学生群体中灌输设计思维行为的有效性。

The goal of the proposed project is to use case studies to introduce design thinking to first-generation and underrepresented students to help them transition from classroom and lab-based learning to engineering capstone design and ultimately to their careers in engineering fields. The case studies will be implemented as part of a new discussion section for a Mechanical Engineering class at UC Merced, a Hispanic Serving Institution where over 60% of undergraduates are the first in their families to attend college, more than half come from bilingual or non-English-speaking homes, and more than 75% of students receive financial aid. This project also represents the first collaboration between an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering at UC Merced who teaches design and is familiar with the challenges students face but has no formal training in education, and an associate professor in Educational Psychology at Michigan State University with expertise in case studies and engineering education. The project will have direct impact on the students at UC Merced who participate in the pilot program, longer-term and wider-reaching impact through dissemination of the case studies and evaluation of their success, as well as on the PIs who will learn from each other's expertise and use this as the first step towards future collaborative education innovation. The engineering profession is a complex and ill-structured domain, and it is recognized that the skill sets which will be required for engineers to successfully fulfill the mission of their profession are much broader than those honed in traditional engineering curricula. This is the premise for promoting and cultivating design thinking in engineering students, and is the focus of the proposed research, which leverages the experiential contexts to develop desired attributes of future engineers. Specifically, this project is based the hypothesis that engaging students in a case-based class before the capstone design course will enable them to both perform better in the design class and will prepare them for real world engineering. This hypothesis will be explored by integrating the component-specific instruction of lectures from an existing Mechanical Component Design course into case studies, with the goal of introducing the students to design thinking. More specifically, design thinking will be taught using case studies that involve the five phases of the Stanford design process: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Given the complex cognitive nature of design thinking, this structured approach will allow students to generate and evolve their solutions/ideas while helping them navigate the challenges of design thinking. The main objectives of this project are to: (1) Develop the PI's expertise in embedding case studies to teach design thinking, (2) establish a library of case studies that use design thinking to expand engineering students' view of problem formulation and solution development, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of case-based instruction for instilling design thinking behavior in a diverse student population.