Session F2C 0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE October 19 – 22, 2005, Indianapolis, IN 35 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F2C-20 Incorporating Student Peer-Review into an Introduction to Engineering Design Course Patricia A. Carlson 1 , Frederick C. Berry 2 , David Voltmer 3 1 Patricia A. Carlson, Humanities and Social Sciences, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, patricia.carlson@rose-hulman.edu 2 Frederick C. Berry, Head, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, fred.berry@rose-hulman.edu 3 David Voltmer, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, david.voltmer@rose-hulman.edu Abstract – We report on a project to improve the teaching of engineering design at the junior level. Peer review of student work is an integral part of collaborative learning and reform-driven engineering education. Yet successfully implementing this pedagogical technique requires significant amounts of instructor and class time. Furthermore, if adequate formative assessment does not emerge from peer review, the experience may devolve into “busy work” in the eyes of the student. Here, we give early results from an NSF-funded study using Calibrated Peer Review (a web-delivered, collaborative learning environment) to enhance learning in engineering design. Index Terms – computer-mediated learning, engineering design, peer-review, technical communication TO ENGINEER IS TO DESIGN Ideally, all courses in the engineering curriculum should address concept-building and problem-solving. However, “design” is the essence of modern-day engineering: “design, above all else, defines the difference between an engineering education and a science education” [1]. While differences in approach are evident, most design courses share a common framework, as described below. All design courses require students to rely upon a body of enabling knowledge from science and mathematics to complete learning tasks. Also, virtually no course lacks a product (usually in the form a working prototype of the idea being developed, accompanied by appropriate types of professional documentation). Courses may include a set of design formalisms, or strategies for structured problem-solving that constitute the “science” of engineering design. (How rigorously these methods are adhered to may depend upon local conditions.) “Constraints” in the design process are the contextual limitations, in the form of functional expectations, manufacturability, human factors requirements, socio-political issues, and the like. “Creativity/Invention” now receives increasing attention in modern design education, even though its attributes are difficult to rationalize into a methodology or a comprehensive pedagogy. Add to this already “full plate” the fact that most design courses instruct students on how to work in teams, and the challenges of teaching engineering design become apparent. We have taken some time to explicate a model of engineering design in order to demonstrate the nature of the demands, both for students and for faculty. We contend that well-planned communication assignments, strategically placed within the course will enhance definable attributes of cognitive growth, reflective judgment, and critical thinking. REFORM-DRIVEN PEDAGOGY IN ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION For about two decades now, engineering education has been in the process of re-inventing itself. ABET’s revised requirements, changing realities of the workplace, and the growing awareness of language in the learning process all place added emphasis on writing in today’s engineering curricula. However, most instructors of engineering design believe themselves to be hard-pressed to incorporate additional writing assignments into courses already filled with content materials. Also, most engineering design instructors may not have either the time or the expertise to provide commentary on student written work. Thus, the formative assessment for these assignments, so critical to learning, doesn’t emerge, and the experience may devolve into “busy work” in the eyes of the student. We report here on early results from an NSF- funded study using Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) – a web- delivered, collaborative learning environment for peer review of writing assignments – in a junior-level introduction to engineering design course. Reviewing the literature, we found several reports of software to facilitate peer-review in engineering education. Eschenbach describes Peer Review, a web-delivered application (developed at Humboldt State University) using HTML “forms” to display instructor-authored questions about texts and to collect student responses [2]. From a different perspective, McGourty, Dominick, and Reilly describe using Team Developer™ to solicit peer feedback on several specific cognitive and behavioral dimensions of team- based learning [3]. Furthermore, most of the course management systems on the market today (WebCT™, BlackBoard™, or Angel™) enable instructors to create a session that will distribute student work, display a rubric (or set of performance guidelines), and collect peer commentary.