2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper describes a long-term effort of building a framework for guiding first-year student teams through open-ended project directions and development of entrepreneurial mindsets, aiming to enhance the students' creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills in early academic stages.

Open-ended projects are assignments that allow for a high degree of freedom in how students approach and solve a problem. Compared to traditional, well-defined projects with specific instructions and clear outcomes, open-ended projects present a much broader real-world problems without a predetermined solution. This would encourage students' creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation, As students must define the problem, decide on a particular approach, explore various potential solutions, and finalize an optimal solution. Studies showed that open-ended projects increase student engagement and motivation, especially in STEM fields. Students' feedback showed that they enjoyed the creative freedom and the ability to work on projects that are meaningful to their personal achievement and communities.

The framework offers a structured roadmap for picking project ideas, allowing students to explore diverse project topics including sustainability and accessibility topics, while receiving mentor support in project ideation. Key components include scaffolded milestones and instructor oversight. The ultimate goal is to balance autonomy and systemic guidance.

The framework was implemented in 66 first-year student teams. The assessment includes final project presentation and showcase. Results indicate that the proposed framework could effectively encourages critical thinking and creative work. This study provides valuable insights into the design of open-ended project structures for academic institutions.