2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

WORK IN PROGRESS – ACADEMIC PRACTICE/DESIGN INTERVENTION. A significant challenge facing design educators is “needs finding” – namely sourcing (i.e. identifying) and specifying (i.e. appropriately bounding) student design projects. To develop authentic, community-based or client-sponsored projects, faculty spend considerable time making contacts, discussing problems, and packaging tractable design projects to meet the design problems needs of first year to graduate design teams. The skills of sourcing and specifying projects can also be important for students themselves to learn, as solutions to well-articulated and important needs can create value for our society.

Over the past few years, a team of faculty and students at Duke University have developed educational materials to develop and support faculty and student skills to do the important task of “needs finding.” For this paper, we will share a series of modules that support the following educational learning outcomes: 1) identify needs through observation; 2) identify needs through interviewing; and 3) write well-scoped need statements. Note that these materials can be used across all engineering disciplines and their design courses.

A series of modules have been created for each of the learning outcomes. Each module contains four to nine videos, multiple in-class exercises, and instructor resources. Together, the modules could fill up to half a semester if used in sequence. These produced materials are currently used in several courses across the curriculum at Duke University including first-year design and a graduate design course; to date, direct assessment on the modules is limited. Most created materials are used during a summer internship when teams are tasked to identify problems and write cogent needs statements. To date, feedback has been positive, especially on the exercises where students practice observing and interviewing to identify unmet needs.