Impromptu Reflection as a Means for Self-Assessment of Design Thinking Skills

Avneet Hira; Morgan M. Hynes

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Conference: 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 26, 2016
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-68565-5
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: K-12 & Pre-College Engineering Division: Student Reflection, Self-Perception, Misconceptions, and Uncertainty
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/p.27311
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/27311
Download Count: 1511

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Paper Authors

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Avneet Hira Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Avneet is a doctoral student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research interests include K-12 education and first year engineering in the light of the engineering design process, and inclusion of digital fabrication labs into classrooms. Her current work at the FACE lab is on the use of classroom Makerspaces for an interest-based framework of engineering design. She is also interested in cross-cultural work in engineering education to promote access and equity. She is an aerospace engineer, and is the present Vice President (Educational Content) of the Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (SPEED).

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Morgan M. Hynes Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Dr. Morgan Hynes is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University and Director of the FACE Lab research group at Purdue. In his research, Hynes explores the use of engineering to integrate academic subjects in K-12 classrooms. Specific research interests include design metacognition among learners of all ages; the knowledge base for teaching K-12 STEM through engineering; the relationships among the attitudes, beliefs, motivation, cognitive skills, and engineering skills of K-16 engineering learners; and teaching engineering.

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Abstract

The encouragement for this paper lies in the individualistic nature of engineering design skills. Design thinking has been articulated in many different forms. Dym et al. (2005) identified the following approaches to characterize design thinking: “design thinking as divergent-convergent questioning, thinking about design systems, making design decisions, design thinking in a team environment, and language of engineering design”. According to Brown (2008), some characteristics of design thinkers include “empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism and collaboration”. The commonality between these approaches and aspects is that design skills are understood and experienced by different individuals differently. This may be attributed to the context of the design activities, prior knowledge of the learner, personally meaningful connections, and other humanistic factors.

We employ narrative analysis to understand how students reflect on their design experiences. We further map these reflections to theorized aspects of design thinking, in order to understand how well students can employ reflection as a means to self assess their engineering design skills.

To understand how learners proceed through developing design thinking skills, we employ Ibarra’s theory of provisional selves (1999). According to Ibarra, individuals experiment with "provisional selves" to accept and internalize them. The three basic tasks in this adaptation process, are ": 1) observing role models to identify potential identities, 2) experimenting with provisional selves, and 3) evaluating these experiments against internal standards and external feedback" (p. 1). In this study, upper elementary and middle school students were initiated into ideas pertaining to design thinking via formalized instruction in their classrooms and a summer camp. The learners then engage with design activities as they experimented with their provisional selves, and then they were asked to reflect upon how they employed design thinking in the context of their project. These reflective narratives that form the third task of Ibarra’s theory constituted the data for our narrative analysis.

This understanding of students’ abilities to reflect upon their design thinking skills further paves the way for a model of self-assessment of design thinking.

Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6). Dym, C. L., Agogino, A. M., Eris, O., Frey, D. D., & Leifer, L. J. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 103–120. Ibarra, H. (1999). Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 764–791.

Citation
Format

Hira, A., & Hynes, M. M. (2016, June), Impromptu Reflection as a Means for Self-Assessment of Design Thinking Skills Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.27311

TY - CPAPER
AB - The encouragement for this paper lies in the individualistic nature of engineering design skills. Design thinking has been articulated in many different forms. Dym et al. (2005) identified the following approaches to characterize design thinking: “design thinking as divergent-convergent questioning, thinking about design systems, making design decisions, design thinking in a team environment, and language of engineering design”. According to Brown (2008), some characteristics of design thinkers include “empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism and collaboration”. The commonality between these approaches and aspects is that design skills are understood and experienced by different individuals differently. This may be attributed to the context of the design activities, prior knowledge of the learner, personally meaningful connections, and other humanistic factors.

We employ narrative analysis to understand how students reflect on their design experiences. We further map these reflections to theorized aspects of design thinking, in order to understand how well students can employ reflection as a means to self assess their engineering design skills.

To understand how learners proceed through developing design thinking skills, we employ Ibarra’s theory of provisional selves (1999). According to Ibarra, individuals experiment with &quot;provisional selves&quot; to accept and internalize them. The three basic tasks in this adaptation process, are &quot;: 1) observing role models to identify potential identities, 2) experimenting with provisional selves, and 3) evaluating these experiments against internal standards and external feedback&quot; (p. 1). In this study, upper elementary and middle school students were initiated into ideas pertaining to design thinking via formalized instruction in their classrooms and a summer camp. The learners then engage with design activities as they experimented with their provisional selves, and then they were asked to reflect upon how they employed design thinking in the context of their project. These reflective narratives that form the third task of Ibarra’s theory constituted the data for our narrative analysis.

This understanding of students’ abilities to reflect upon their design thinking skills further paves the way for a model of self-assessment of design thinking.

Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard Business Review, 86(6).
Dym, C. L., Agogino, A. M., Eris, O., Frey, D. D., &amp; Leifer, L. J. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 103–120.
Ibarra, H. (1999). Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 764–791.

AU - Avneet Hira
AU - Morgan M. Hynes
CY - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA - 2016/06/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Impromptu Reflection as a Means for Self-Assessment of Design Thinking Skills
UR - https://peer.asee.org/27311
DO - 10.18260/p.27311
ER -