Resumen de Teaching, learning, and practicing design processes in an interdisciplinary and intercultural context
Knowledge about design processes is fundamental to engineering education. Nevertheless, this is a broad topic that, by definition,touches on all aspects of design practice. This paper presents a novel curriculum for design education that is shaped around thedesign process and specific activities within the design process. The three themes explored in this paper are: 1. The importance ofthe design process in defining the program; 2. The relationship between the design process and the program structure and programlearning outcomes (PLOs); and 3. The students’ understanding of the design process as a consequence of participating in theprogram. Section 1 presents background material on the importance of design process knowledge in engineering education andprovides a brief overview of models of the design process. Section 2 presents the design of the Bachelor of Engineering program inIndustrial Design at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University: the role of design within the university, the distinctives of the program,and the definition of program learning outcomes. Section 3 presents the design and results of a student survey to evaluate thestudents’ awareness and confidence in design process knowledge. Section 4 provides conclusions and suggestions for future work.
