The Current State Of Capstone Design Pedagogy

Abstract

In the fall of 2009, faculty involved in capstone design courses were surveyed to track trends in the course structure and to explore current pedagogical practices. Where prior surveys probed course logistics, faculty involvement, project coordination, funding details, and industry involvement, this survey complements that work by also addressing the teaching beliefs and practices of capstone faculty. The results provide a basis for understanding commonalities across capstone experiences and help lay the foundation for training future design educators. This paper presents the descriptive statistical results from the survey, examines national trends in capstone pedagogy, and addresses the implications of the findings for design education.

A Continual Improvement Process for Teaching Leadership and Innovation Within a Community of Practice

“…The driving force for continual improvement is rooted in calls for engineering graduates to be better prepared for industry and to address the disconnect between engineers working in academic and industry industrial environments (NRC, 1995;NRC, 1997;Dutson, 1997;Wulf, 1998;Donnell, 2011). Many researchers, instructors, and accreditation organizations have devoted time and resources to close this gap (Pembridge, 2010;Jamieson, 2016; including the introduction of outcomes based CEAB graduate attributes (CEAB, 2014) and continual improvement process requirements (CEAB, 2018) in engineering academic program accreditation processes -as outlined in Appendix A. One of the current goals of the CEAB is the continual improvement of the quality and relevance of engineering education.…”

New Engineers' First Three Months: A Study of the Transition from Capstone Design Courses to Workplaces

“…The list of possible activities was constructed based on common practices included in capstone design courses as workplace preparation (e.g. [7][8][9]) and refined by the research team to ensure coverage of a wide range of workplace activities. Figure 1 lists items included in the quantitative survey.…”

“…Capstone courses were initially developed to address industry complaints about gaps in new engineers' preparation and meet design requirements established by ABET in the 1990s [6]. Now ubiquitous, they share a number of common features across institutions and disciplines [7][8][9]. Most often they are structured as year-long team experiences that combine formal courses with extended projects, with an increasing emphasis on industry-sponsored projects [8].…”

“…Most often they are structured as year-long team experiences that combine formal courses with extended projects, with an increasing emphasis on industry-sponsored projects [8]. Faculty goals for these courses center on helping students integrate their technical course work in ways that provide authentic, workplaceoriented design experiences [9][10][11].…”

Contributions of the Industry Involvement in Civil and Environmental Engineering Capstone Design Projects

“…According to a 2005 study 12 of capstone design courses in the United States, 71% of the courses included industry-sponsored projects. Capstone faculty view the course as a means to provide students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned throughout their undergraduate career through an open-ended design project in an environment that simulates the real world 13 . The benefit of the involvement of practicing engineering professionals has been discussed in the literature 14,15,16,17,18 .…”