Designing the Human Experience: Folio Thinking in Theory and Practice within a Freshman Engineering Seminar

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Engineering education faces persistent shortcomings in the recruitment and retention of women and minorities. One factor contributing to this multifaceted problem is a lack of student confidence in abilities and knowledge related to engineering practice. Our theory-of-change predicts that three experiential elements must be integrated to build confidence; students must:1) experience their own thinking in engineering activities; 2) create and see tangible evidence that they have formulated and solved interesting engineering problems; and 3) be guided to maximize the benefits of elements 1 and 2. To address these issues, we are providing freshmen with a learning experience that will allow them to make informed choices in favor of engineering before they have acquired the fundamentals. We are accomplishing this by developing and evaluating a new instructional strategy-Folio Thinking-in a freshman engineering seminar at Stanford University, Designing the Human Experience: Design Thinking Theory and Practice. Folio Thinking is an innovative pedagogical paradigm aimed at increasing the intellectual self-confidence of prospective engineering majors by raising their awareness of their engineering aptitudes, knowledge, and skills by guiding students through the process of creating learning portfolios. Creating the portfolio is itself an important learning experience and our primary assessment instrument. We are collaborating with engineering faculty members from other institutions to develop a rubric for evaluating the student portfolios. This project will deliver: a detailed online case-study; a corpus of data open to study by educators and engineering faculty; and a model of Folio Thinking pedagogy (assignments, supporting tools, and materials) for re-use, re-design, and re-deployment nationally and internationally. We expect that students will seek out these courses and that faculty will find the above materials useful in a wide array of introductory and advanced engineering courses that attract and maintain a diverse engineering student body.