2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In a recent report by the Society of Human Resource Management (1), over 50% of industry executives reported that recent college graduates lack problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation, creativity, and communication skills. This lack of soft skills described by the report may have resulted from the fact that in many engineering programs, students’ exposure to real-world problem-solving and experiential learning is often limited to Capstone courses. Additionally, while all engineering programs implement several approaches to enhance communication and team-working skills, these approaches may not be sufficient to ensure every student has access to activities that engage students in authentic, open-ended inquiry.
In this paper, we present findings from implementing an Internet of Things (IoT) project activity in a computer engineering class to promote interdisciplinary research and an entrepreneur mindset (EM). The project-based learning activity provided students with a chance to propose, plan, design, and implement solutions to real-world problems while enhancing their communication and teamwork skills. Using multiple assignments, students were directed to propose an Internet of Things (IoT) based system with real-world connections and gather feedback from a real audience to support their design proposals. This supplied a goal and purpose for the activity and was a leading factor in exploration. To support promoting the EM in the activity, students focused on providing a solution to a real-world problem and proposing a market-driven solution based on research and product analysis. Proposals were also required to integrate Bio-inspired components in their designs and use media artworks to reflect purpose and audience in the final product. Over six weeks, students were introduced to several system design components. The earlier analysis of results indicates that the hands-on experience facilitated higher-order reasoning and allowed the students to think systematically about the feasibility and functionality of their design solutions.
The research focused on studying the effectiveness of the proposed approach in developing EM, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork skills in engineering students. The researcher employed qualitative thematic analysis of student feedback and reflections on their project learning experience using photovoice prompts to collect the data. The qualitative data were coded and analyzed for themes using ATLAS.ti qualitative analysis software.

(1) Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), October 21, 2019