An increased interest in expanding engineering education with youth brings with it a multitude of approaches toward developing engineering programming. In this article, I explore how developing programming for the purpose of fostering liberatory design offers a means of supporting young people in both personally consequential and technically…

Our first year biomedical engineering course exposes students to multiple engineering and design techniques within an overarching theme of understanding health inequity. Currently, the semester-long curriculum excludes computational methods such as Python programming and Machine Learning, which are usually not introduced until more advanced BME…

Today, elementary school teachers continue to revisit old lessons and seek out new ones, especially in engineering. Optimization is the process by which an existing product or procedure is revised and refined. Drawn from the authors' experiences working directly with students in grades K-5 and their teachers and preservice teachers, the…

Aim/Purpose: This study was aimed at enhancing students' learning of software engineering methods. A collaboration between the Computer Science, Business Management, and Product Design programs was formed to work on actual projects with real clients. This interdisciplinary form of collaboration simulates the realities of a diverse Software…

ePortfolios (ePs) have been used in a variety of applications ranging from undergraduate assessment to graduate student work showcases. We hypothesize that the flexible, individualized nature of ePs makes them suitable assessment tools for graduate engineering programs, which are likewise flexible and individualized. Our investigation resulted in…

Engineering has gained considerable traction in many K-12 schools. However, there are several obstacles or challenges to an effective approach that leads to student learning. Questions such as where engineering best fits in the curriculum; how to include it authentically and appropriately; toward what educational end; and how best to prepare…

Seattle University has an industrially sponsored, yearlong, senior design program that has been in existence for more than 20 years. Students work in teams of three or four under the guidance of a liaison from the sponsoring agency and a faculty advisor. The students prepare a proposal in the fall quarter detailing their plan and a design report…

Reflective practice is an important vehicle for the apprenticeship of tacit and procedure-oriented knowledge. This article explores the development of reflective practice in the teaching of an innovative design course. Starting from a characterization of the "materials of a design situation" (problem-solution duality, methods and tools,…

For the past year we have been developing and implementing a program in which students design and construct remote operated vehicles. In this paper, we report on a pilot study that occurred over the course of an academic year in an inner city high school. Specifically, we have been investigating whether students learn meaningful science content…