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Enhancing Problem Solving Skills in Engineering and Graphics Technology Students

Gary Frey, David Baird, Ted Loso, Raj Desai, Craig Downing

Southeast Missouri State University

Abstract

The fast pace of product development has caused a need for both managerial and technical graduates who are able to solve problems. In the area of Industrial Education, new methods are needed to enhance problem-solving skills. Industry generated product ideas are turned over to Engineering Technology and Technical Graphics students for design, drawing, and prototyping. This presentation examines the value of Industry/Education cooperation in regard to improving product development and sales as well as examining it’s effect on student scores, skills, and self esteem. Both beneficial and detrimental factors to industrial and educational cooperation are discussed. Various groups of students were tested at different levels of instruction before and after being assigned industry partners in the development of new products. Significant increases in standardized test scores and design skills were noted after the cooperative development of these designs and prototypes. Various uses for product design and prototyping partnerships in education and industry are examined and their benefits to students, educators, administrators, and industry are examined. While the time constraints placed on both the students and the instructors is a problem, the benefits are great enough to make this cooperation worthwhile. The use of advanced technology is expensive but there are various ways to defray the cost of this technology to both education and industry. Cooperative ventures of this kind result in more ideas going into production, increase student learning, and help small-scale production facilities increase their profitability.

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to determine effective ways to improve student’s problem solving skills. It was thought that the Rapid Prototyping and design of industrial projects would be valuable in increasing the translation between 2-D drawings and actual 3-D parts. In order to accomplish this, the following research questions were proposed: · Will drawing an object in 3-D and producing that part with a Rapid Prototyping system improve student problem solving skills? · Do Industry/Education partnerships in design and Rapid Prototyping improve student problem solving skills? Additionally several other courses and techniques were also evaluated for problem solving improvement.

“Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ã 2002, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Loso, T., & Desai, R., & Baird, D., & Downing, C., & Frey, G. (2002, June), Enhancing Problem Solving Skills In Engineering And Graphics Technology Students Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--11111