Challenges and Benefits of Open-Ended Sustainable Design in First-Year Engineering
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 140, Issue 2
Abstract
The process of designing buildings requires both creative and analytical skills to devise innovative building solutions that cannot be generated from analytical skills alone, but traditional teaching and assessment tends to focus on analytical skills. This research begins to address the challenge of encouraging innovation and creativity in the engineering classroom through an open-ended design problem given to students in a first-year engineering course. With only a basic level of prior experience, students created designs for a new exterior wall for an existing building space to make the building perform more sustainably. Students submitted rough sketches of their design ideas along with written documentation illustrating the process that they used to create a design solution to the problem. The responses from the students were analyzed to determine the positive and negative aspects of this open-ended design problem on their education. Students were successful at addressing one or more of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) categories that affect sustainability in their designs and they felt that the activity was beneficial and enjoyable. On the other hand, the submitted designs did not deviate greatly from the existing building design. Students tended to start with one design idea and refine that first idea as long as time would permit, as opposed to experimenting with several possible design iterations. Recommendations are presented to increase the iterations in the design process to improve the educational experience for students.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
We would also like to thank all the students enrolled in this course who participated in this research effort. We would also like to thank the Raymond A. Bowers Program for Excellence in Design and Construction at Penn State for its financial support of this research project.
References
Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., and Simon, H. (1996). “Situated learning and education.” Educ. Researcher, 25(4), 5–11.
Antepohl, W., and Herzig, S. (1999). “Problem-based learning versus lecture-based learning in a course of basic pharmacology: A controlled, randomized study.” Med. Educ., 33(2), 106–113.
Barrows, H. S. (1986). “A taxonomy of problem-based learning methods.” Med. Educ., 20(6), 481–486.
Bernstein, H. M. (2010). Green BIM how building information modeling is contributing to green design and construction, McGraw Hill Construction, Bedford, MA.
Brydges, R., Dubrowski, A., and Regehr, G. (2010). “A new concept of unsupervised learning: Directed self-guided learning in the health professions.” Acad. Med., 85(10), S49–S55.
Charyton, C., and Merrill, J. A. (2009). “Assessing general creativity and creative engineering design in first year engineering students.” J. Eng. Educ., 98(2), 145–156.
Colliver, J. A. (2000). “Effectiveness of problem-based learning curricula: Research and theory.” Acad. Med., 75(3), 259–266.
Felder, R. M., and Silverman, L. K. (1988). “Learning and teaching styles in engineering education.” Eng. Educ., 78(7), 674–681.
Fowler, K. M., and Rauch, E. M. (2006). Sustainable building rating systems summary, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA.
Hung, D. W. L. (1999). “Activity, apprenticeship, and epistemological appropriation: Implications from the writings of Michael Polanyi.” Educ. Psychol., 34(4), 193–205.
Jahan, K., Everett, J. W., Hesketh, R. P., Jansson, P. M., and Hollar, K. (2004). “Environmental education for all engineers.” Water Sci. Technol., 49(8), 19–25.
Jansson, D. G., and Smith, S. M. (1991). “Design fixation.” Des. Stud., 12(1), 3–11.
Johri, A., and Olds, B. M. (2011). “Situated engineering learning: Bridging engineering education research and the learning sciences.” J. Eng. Educ., 100(1), 151–185.
Judd, C. H. (1908). “The relation of special training to general intelligence.” Educ. Rev., 36, 28–42.
Katyal, K. R., and Evers, C. W. (2004). “Teacher leadership and autonomous student learning: Adjusting to the new realities.” Int. J. Educ. Res., 41(4–5), 367–382.
Kevern, J. T. (2011). “Green building and sustainability infrastructure: Sustainability education for civil engineers.” J. Prof. Issues Eng. Educ. Pract., 107–112.
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation, Press Syndicate of the Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.
Linsey, J. S., Tseng, I., Fu, K., Cagan, J., Wood, K. L., and Schunn, C. (2010). “A study of design fixation, its mitigation and perception in engineering design faculty.” J. Mech. Des., 132(4), 1–12.
Menassa, C., Mangasarian, S., El Asmar, M., and Kirar, C. (2012). “Energy consumption evaluation of U.S. Navy LEED-certified buildings.” J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 46–53.
Metcalfe, J., and Kornell, N. (2003). “The dynamics of learning and allocation of study time to a region of proximal learning.” J. Exp. Psychol., 132(4), 530–542.
Metcalfe, J., and Kornell, N. (2005). “A region of proximal learning model or study time allocation.” J. Mem. Lang., 52(4), 463–477.
Milgram, P., and Kishino, F. (1994). “A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays.” Trans. Inform. Syst., E77-D(12), 1321–1329.
Mills, J. E., and Treagust, D. F. (2003). “Engineering education—is problem-based or project-based learning the answer?” Australas. J. Eng. Educ.
Montero, E., and González, M. J. (2009). “Student engagement in a structured problem-based approach to learning: A first-year electronic engineering study module on heat transfer.” IEEE Trans. Educ., 52(2), 214–221.
Prince, M. (2004). “Does active learning work? A review of the research.” J. Eng. Educ., 93(3), 223–231.
Scofield, J. H. (2009). “Do LEED-certified buildings save energy? Not really….” Energy Build., 41(12), 1386–1390.
Ursulet, S., and Gillet, D. (2002). “Introducing flexibility in traditional engineering education by providing dedicated on-line experimentation and tutoring resources.” Int. Conf. on Engineering Education, Manchester, U.K., 1–4.
U.S. Dept. of Energy. (2011). 2010 building energy data book, Silver Spring, MD.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2010). International energy outlook 2010, U.S. Dept. of Energy, Washington, DC.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 140 • Issue 2 • April 2014
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 20, 2012
Accepted: Oct 28, 2013
Published online: Dec 9, 2013
Published in print: Apr 1, 2014
Discussion open until: May 9, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.