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Session Description

Free ticketed event
This workshop engages with the question: how might we help students become better able to intentionally engage in a design process, as part of an effort to help them become reflective practitioners of design? On a theoretical level, this work connects to the diversity of design processes and research on metacognition. This workshop also builds on prior research on helping students to become more metacognitively aware of their current state in a design process.

In this interactive 2.5-hour workshop, participants will learn how to build self-awareness for their students and themselves through self-tracked design timelines (that we are calling Design Signatures). With these design signatures visible in front of them, students and faculty can better reflect on an otherwise invisible design process.

WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES AND CONTENT:
1. Introduction and Research Context (15 minutes)
2. Experiential Learning: Participants in the student role (Design activity with timeline/signature tracking, De-brief) (45 minutes)
Break (15 minutes)
3. Application and Discussion: Participants as educators and partners (walkthrough of design signature implementation in different contexts, development of ideas and plans by participants in affinity groups, gallery walk and report out) (60 minutes)
4. Wrap-up (postcard to your future self, creation of follow-up groups) (15 minutes)

ANTICIPATED AUDIENCE:
We anticipate that this research-to-practice workshop would appeal to multiple
audiences including graduate students and educators who are interested in teaching
design to undergraduates.

FACILITATORS:
This group of design educators has experience using design signatures to teach undergraduate engineering students about design processes from first-year students to graduating seniors. We have used design signatures in a variety of ways ranging from short in-class activities to longer efforts where seniors track their capstone projects. We have collected signatures using paper-and-pencil bubble sheets, Google forms, spreadsheets, and a newly-developed Design Signatures app. In each implementation students have had great “aha” moments about the design process and themselves as designers. The workshop facilitators have extensive experience implementing these concepts in their design teaching.

Speakers

1. Dr. Cynthia J. Atman

   University of Washington

   Cynthia J. Atman is the founding director of the Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching (CELT), a professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering, and the inaugural holder of the Mitchell T. & Lella Blanche Bowie Endowed Chair at the University of Washington. Dr. Atman holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on design expertise, engineering design learning, considering context in engineering design, and the use of reflection to support learning.

2. Prof. Reid Bailey

   University of Virginia

   Reid Bailey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Virginia. He holds a BSE from Duke University and an MSME and PhD from Georgia Tech, all in mechanical engineering. His professional interests include engineering design, engineering education, and the environment.

3. Prof. Susannah Howe

   Smith College

   Susannah Howe, Ph.D. is the Design Clinic Director in the Picker Engineering Program at Smith College, where she coordinates and teaches the capstone engineering design course. Her current research focuses on innovations in engineering design education, particularly at the capstone level. She is invested in building the capstone design community; she is a leader in the biannual Capstone Design Conferences and the Capstone Design Hub initiative. She is also involved with efforts to foster design learning in middle and high school students and to support entrepreneurship at primarily undergraduate institutions. Her background is in civil engineering with a focus on structural materials. She holds a B.S.E. degree from Princeton, and M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell.

4. Dr. Daria A Kotys-Schwartz

   University of Colorado Boulder

   Daria Kotys-Schwartz is the Director of the Idea Forge—a flexible, cross-disciplinary design space at University of Colorado Boulder. She is also the Design Center Colorado Director of Undergraduate Programs and a Senior Instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She received B.S. and M.S degrees in mechanical engineering 
from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder. Kotys-Schwartz has focused her research in engineering student learning, retention, and student identity development within the context of engineering design. She is currently investigating the impact of cultural norms in an engineering classroom context, performing comparative studies between engineering education and professional design practices, examining holistic approaches to student retention, and exploring informal learning in engineering education.

5. Dr. Micah Lande

   South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

   Micah Lande, PhD is an Assistant Professor and E.R. Stensaas Chair for Engineering Education in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. Dr. Lande directs the Holistic Engineering Lab & Observatory. He teaches human-centered engineering design, design thinking, and design innovation courses. Dr. Lande researches how technical and non-technical people learn and apply design thinking and making processes to their work. He is interested in the intersection
   of designerly epistemic identities and vocational pathways. Dr. Lande received his B.S. in
   Engineering (Product Design), M.A. in Education (Learning, Design and Technology) and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Design Education) from Stanford University.

6. Prof. Eli Patten

   University of Washington

   Dr. Patten is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Washington. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering at Washington State University and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley.

7. Krina Patel

   University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

   Krina Patel is a PhD student at the UC Berkeley School of Education.

8. Dr. Jennifer A Turns

   University of Washington

   Jennifer Turns is a Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She is interested in all aspects of engineering education, including how to support engineering students in reflecting on experience, how to help engineering educators make effective teaching decisions, and the application of ideas from complexity science to the challenges of engineering education.