2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This evidence-based practice poster will assess the impact of the authentic learning assignment ‘Design Your Own Problem’ (DYOP) on student learning levels as compared to typical assessments, such as quizzes, in a fluid mechanics course.

Upper-level engineering courses with a heavy emphasis on theoretical knowledge require students to understand and apply new, unintuitive co­­ncepts. Fluid Mechanics and other upper-level engineering courses rely upon a student’s prior knowledge of basic engineering principles and abstract understanding of mathematical concepts to comfortably approach new problems in this field. It is one of the first courses in which more abstract concepts are given physical and applicable meanings. As such, this course is a critical opportunity to teach higher-order engineering skills, such as problem definition, problem simplification, modeling, and solution analysis. These skills are required to solve ill-structured or open-ended engineering problems, which are most problems an engineer will face during their career. Yet, the vast majority of the problems students are assigned are well-structured or close-ended problems. There is a need to scaffold student learning from simple, well-posed textbook problems to more open-ended problems requiring higher levels of critical thinking. One possible strategy is to use authentic learning assignments in upper-level lecture-based engineering courses.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the difference in levels of learning or critical thinking employed by students while solving typical quiz problems compared to those employed while completing this authentic learning assignment. The authentic learning assignment Design Your Own Problem (DYOP) challenges students to choose a specific sub-topic of fluid mechanics and research, define, and solve a real-world engineering problem within that domain. In this assignment, students are required to simplify a real situation by analyzing which portions of the problem are significant, identifying and selecting necessary values and input parameters, and choosing and evaluating their solution strategy. To measure levels of learning achieved, student reflections are coded for levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy categorized levels of problem-solving and learning in a tiered system, the bottom of which is the most basic level of learning and the highest is the most complex and elevated level of learning. Students are assigned one-page reflections after completing their quizzes and DYOP assignments. The students are prompted to focus on their thought processes while completing each assessment. In this study, we analyze post-assessment reflections written by 54 students in a fluid mechanics course. Based on preliminary analyses, evidence suggests that students achieve higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy during the DYOP as compared to traditional assignments.