2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering the Next Generation of Innovators: Analysis of Students’ Innovation Habits

Presented at Design in Engineering Education Division (DEED) - Student-Centered Approaches in Design Education

In today's rapidly evolving landscape, innovation is the cornerstone of high value creation. This fast pace necessitates a fundamental reevaluation of educational paradigms. The imperative to emphasize lifelong learning, inquisitiveness, innovation, and an unwavering commitment to continuous self-improvement is abundantly clear. At the heart of this educational recalibration lies two questions: To what extent can personal innovativeness be honed and amplified through curricular innovations? and What are the requisite strategies for nurturing students' practical skills, thereby enabling a perpetual journey of discovery? This work is focused on the design of a course called "Innovation Mind and Skill Sets for Design and Research," tailored specifically for students in the STEM disciplines. The class equips students with a comprehensive innovation-focused skill set, empowering them to synthesize their specialized knowledge within broader societal contexts and, in turn, navigate the complex terrain of breakthrough innovation. This paper delves into the course’s framework, which draws inspiration from the vast reservoir of innovation literature and two decades of the instructor’s industry experience applying and improving innovation business processes with her teams in a fast-paced, high-tech industry. The core hypothesis of this paper is that innovation is fundamentally a learning process, that personal innovativeness can be cultivated and elevated through the teaching of established principles derived from the realm of learning science. These principles encompass the elevation of metacognition, the deliberate integration of intentionality into the learning process, and the embedding of reflective practices into the students' educational journeys. In addition, the curriculum integrates pedagogical principles related to systems thinking and Transformative Learning Theory for adults. The coursework is designed to impart practical techniques that serve as scaffolds for students' innovation processes and enhances their metacognition. The journey through this educational framework leads to an ascent through the tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy, guiding students to cultivate enduring habits that are essential for the sustenance of the innovation process. These practical skills are honed through active participation in a team project, revolving around the innovation process, with guidance and feedback from innovation practitioners. The learning experience is further enriched through a deliberate emphasis on reflection, integrated into classroom presentations. These aspects of student progress and improvement are assessed against traditional design curricula using the Innovator Mindset® Assessment. The results are analyzed to underscore the impact of curricular innovation in fostering and amplifying personal innovativeness.

Authors

Hadear Ibrahim Hassan Texas A&M University [biography]

Hadear Hassan is a Doctoral Candidate in the J. Mike Walker ‘66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. She holds a BSc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University. Her research interest includes smart and sustainable manufacturing and engineering education.
Mr. Luis Angel Rodriguez http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4679-2739 Texas A&M University
Dr. Astrid Layton http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3790-2916 Texas A&M University [biography]

Dr. Astrid Layton is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University in the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering and a Donna Walker Faculty Fellow. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. She was elected to serve as a member and chair of ASME’s Design Theory and Methodology technical committee 2020-23. She is also a guest editor for IEEE’s Open Journal of Systems Engineering and associate editor for ASME's Journal of Mechanical Design. She is the recipient of several awards, including a 2021 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers & Information in Engineering (IDETC-CIE) best paper award. Her research uses interdisciplinary collaborations to solve large-scale system problems, developing knowledge that supports designers and decision-makers. Dr. Layton is an expert on bio-inspired systems design, with a focus on the use of biological ecosystems as inspiration for achieving sustainability and resilience in the design of complex human networks/systems/systems of systems. Examples include industrial resource networks, makerspaces, power grids, cyber-physical systems, supply chains, innovation processes, and water distribution networks.
David Christopher Seets Texas A&M University
M. Cynthia Hipwell http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7500-9785 Texas A&M University [biography]

Dr. Hipwell has been working in the area of technology development based upon nanoscale phenomena for over 20 years. She received her B.S.M.E. from Rice University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation, she went to work at Seagate Technology’s Recording Head Division in Bloomington, Minnesota. During her time at Seagate, Dr. Hipwell held various individual and leadership positions in the areas of reliability, product development, and advanced mechanical and electrical technology development. In these various roles, she established new business processes and an organizational culture that focused on developing innovative solutions from root cause understanding, improved pace of learning, and discipline in experimentation and configuration management. She was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for her leadership in the development of technologies to enable areal density and reliability increases in hard disk drives and was elected a National Academy of Inventors Fellow in 2018. Dr. Hipwell is currently the Oscar S. Wyatt, Jr. ’45 Chair II at Texas A&M University, where she has developed new classes on innovation and technology development as part of her leadership of the INVENT (INnoVation tools and Entrepreneurial New Technology) Lab. She is Co-PI on a National Science Foundation engineering education grant to develop a culture of and tools for iterative experimentation and continuous improvement in curriculum development.

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