Teaching Design Process Skills by the Quality Model Improves Design Performance

• In Event: Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: STEM Education in K-12 and Higher Education

Abstract

This project has demonstrated the usefulness of using design process assessments as the basis for students to reflect on their practice and to write plans for how they intend to improve. The assessments were simulations in which the student respondent observed a virtual team developing a design and answered a series of questions about what the team should do at each step. Students in the intervention classroom improved more within the semester than students in the previous year who had no such intervention. In addition the simulation provided pointers toward improvement to the instructor as well as to the students. This is the first demonstration of the usefulness of assessment-based continuous improvement in promoting design process and design skill.

Authors

• Judith Eileen Sims-Knight, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

• Paul Fortier, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

• Benjamin Viall, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

• Adam Young, University of Colorado