2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Design is not the only important aspect of engineering, but it is “widely considered to be [its] central or distinguishing activity” (R. Razzouk and V. Shute, 2012). Mastering design skills requires students to practice design in authentic contexts and engage in thoughtful reflections for meaning-making. Engineering design notebooks are gaining attention by instructors to integrate their facilitation (structured, semi-structured or open) and reflections, as the notebook serves the dual purpose of learning and assessment. The notebook (product or process-focused) is intended to record the thoughts, design iterations, and research conducted by students, while the instructors are able to assess student progress in a formative and/or summative manner.

While the structure can vary significantly, we can make an important distinction between process- and product-based notebooks. A product-based notebook focuses more on reflection after the product is finished, such as a design portfolio that documents the sequential design stages. Design portfolios have been used as authentic assessment tools by instructors (Koch and Burghardt, 2002). By contrast, a process-based notebook focuses on reflection throughout the design process. Engineering design notebooks can be structured intentionally to highlight this distinction, with a format intended to encourage reflection and emphasize process-based engineering as critical to applying design strategies in novel contexts. Thus, both students and teachers share the utility of the engineering design notebook. Students can use the notebook as a space for reflection and brainstorming, which is especially useful as a tool for instructors to have additional insight into their students' thought processes. This additional insight provided to teachers particularly becomes a valuable asset in blended and online learning environments.

Our blended learning international program works with learners who are displaced and their teachers, where student-teacher contact is limited and inconsistent. Our program recognizes local knowledge spaces and enables their role in the development of long-term community-oriented engineering solutions. To provide additional structure for students' learning and support facilitators with scope for consistent formative assessment, we developed a process-based engineering design notebook. The notebook was constructed to mirror the course content, with significant space for brainstorming, design ideas, and reflection.

In this paper, we investigate the perceived utility of the engineering design notebook to both instructors and students, as the notebook is meant to serve the needs communicated by the students while additionally being a valuable resource for teachers. We conduct qualitative analysis through teacher and student interviews. We will apply thematic analysis and draw overall themes on the perceived utilities of design notebooks described by the instructional team and their respective students. As a result, we demonstrate how engineering design notebooks help teachers support their students in an international blended learning program. This paper is relevant to engineering educators interested in increasing access to quality engineering learning in displaced contexts, and to understand their students’ design thinking processes.