Resumen de Exploring design process learning through two reflective prompts
Each student in a project-based engineering design course has a unique experience. Reflection is critical because it helps ensure thatstudents learn from these unique experiences. Two prompts aimed at encouraging reflection about engineering design are comparedin this work. Thirty-five students completed both prompts at the end of an introductory engineering design course. Results showthat one of the two prompts, the Design Process Knowledge (DPK) critique, focused reflections on topics related to themanagement of a design project: what activities to do when and for how long. This contrasts with the other prompt, called ‘‘Whatto Make of It’’ (W2MoI), which elicited meaning-making about the engineering designer themselves. Students reflected on themindsets of effective engineering designers, their emotional experiences with engineering design, and the role of teams and socialinteractions in engineering design. What to Make of It also engaged students in reflecting on design activities; but, instead offocusing on the management of those activities (as with the Design Process Knowledge critique), students more commonlyexpressed realizations about designers themselves (mindsets, emotions, and social interactions of designers). For example, W2MoIresponses such as ‘‘engineering is all about people’’ and ‘‘don’t get attached to your ideas’’ are contrasts to DPK responses like‘‘make sure to spend time engaging users’’ and ‘‘they should go back to brainstorming later’’. The most direct implication of thiswork is in the engineering design classroom, where these two reflective prompts can be used to guide students to make differentkinds of meaning from their experiences.
