Engineering Faculty as Instructional Designers

Engineering faculty are instructional designers who design coursework with student learning outcomes in mind. When engineering faculty design courses, they make pedagogical choices about what emerging engineers can and should learn. Increasingly, engineering faculty are choosing to engage students in solving the open-ended, ill-defined problems characteristic of professional engineering work. This study of pedagogical intent describes the learning outcomes faculty seek to cultivate through engaging students in solving open-ended problems. We ask: What pedagogical goals do engineering faculty design toward? We interviewed six engineering faculty across five public and private universities in the United States about their experience teaching with open-ended homework problems and projects. We conducted thematic analysis of the interviews to identify the learning outcomes these faculty designed their instruction to cultivate. These faculty intend for students to develop engineering science knowledge, to understand the nature of engineering problems, to learn engineering reasoning, and to build emotional skills needed to thrive in learning and doing engineering. These faculty utilize open-ended problems to teach not only conceptual knowledge, but also epistemic practices and affective outlooks that are productive for students’ engineering learning and their development as working engineers.