2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Every engineering student enrolled in an ABET-accredited engineering program encounters a culminating design experience that is formulated to require the use of engineering standards, present a context with multiple constraints, and exercise the students’ acquired knowledge and skills from their program coursework (ABET 2021). Historically recognized disciplines of engineering practice (I.e. Mechanical engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, etc.) have well-established pedagogical approaches for presenting these challenges. However, new/emergent fields of engineering offer an opportunity to re-examine and re-align the pedagogies of instruction for such capstone experiences.

Integrated across the College of Engineering (multidisciplinary engineering) and College of Liberal Arts (theatre program), theatre engineering students complete what is known as a “three-year capstone design experience”. Rather than a single penultimate capstone design experience in the senior year, students in this unique multidisciplinary engineering program experience the habits of mind and practice of engineering over three years, with their final year being used in leading the design/build solution finding for a live theatrical performance.

This work examines a novel instance of engineering capstone design inspired by Wiggins and McTighe’s backward design instructional approach (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), informed by the CAP- Content, Assessment, and Pedagogy framework (Streveler, Smith & Pilotte, 2012), and executed as an instance of practice-based education (Mann, Chang, Chandrasekaran, et. al, 2021).
Utilizing a qualitative case study research design this formative and integrated (engineering/performance arts) experience is examined sharing critical aspects of content, assessment, and pedagogical differentiation. Features of the three-year experience include scaffolded and repetitive instances of engineering design practice for live performance with incremental leadership, formative “just-in-time” instruction, and the use of public critique.