Author:

Keywords:

Learning Pathway, Problem-Solving and Design, Engineering Education, Rubrics

Abstract:

The Faculty of Engineering Science at KU Leuven has over ten years of experience in letting students develop problem-solving and design competences. Within the learning pathway ‘Problem-Solving and Design’ (PS&D) students collaborate in small groups to solve real-life engineering problems. This pathway consists of four courses that are spread over the three years of the Bachelor’s programme and is based on three Design Pyramids. The central one shows the different aspects of the design process and rests on two smaller pyramids: communication and teamwork on the one hand and project management on the other (Berbers, Londers, Froyen, Ceusters, De Jong, & Van Hemelrijck, 2015). However, a lack of feedback on the design competences was stated by the students and indicated in quality review reports (de Jong, Londers, Van Hemelrijck, & Froyen, 2014). For this purpose, two steps were taken to make the competences that students develop during PS&D more transparent and develop a tool to assess them. A first step was making the content of each part of the design process explicit, resulting in a table of objectives. Subsequently, rubrics were formulated according to the different components of the Design Pyramids. In this way, students will receive more information than merely a numeric score. The following paper gives an overview of the objectives and reports on the rubrics that were developed. Future plans are also discussed, such as training the coaches of PS&D to guarantee a similar assessment and stimulating the students to use these rubrics during self- and peer-evaluation.