Teaching, Learning, and Practicing Design Processes in an Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Context

摘要

Knowledge about design processes is fundamental to engineering education. Nevertheless, this is a broad topic that, by definition, touches on all aspects of design practice. This paper presents a novel curriculum for design education that is shaped around the design process and specific activities within the design process. The three themes explored in this paper are: 1. The importance of the design process in defining the program; 2. The relationship between the design process and the program structure and program learning outcomes (PLOs); and 3. The students' understanding of the design process as a consequence of participating in the program. Section 1 presents background material on the importance of design process knowledge in engineering education and provides a brief overview of models of the design process. Section 2 presents the design of the Bachelor of Engineering program in Industrial Design at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University: the role of design within the university, the distinctives of the program, and the definition of program learning outcomes. Section 3 presents the design and results of a student survey to evaluate the students' awareness and confidence in design process knowledge. Section 4 provides conclusions and suggestions for future work.