ORCHESTRATING LEARNING IN A GRADUATE ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSE

ME6101: Engineering Design is a graduate level course offered by The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The course is orchestrated to achieve three objectives, namely, to have students internalize the Pahl and Beitz design method, to help them “reinvent” the Pahl and Beitz design method to meet the challenges of the future, and most importantly, to learn how to continue learning about design. The course was given during the Fall 2000 semester to a class of nineteen students – most in their first semester of graduate school – in addition to six practicing engineers via a distance-learning program. In this paper, the techniques utilized to foster learning in ME6101 are described. Excerpts from students’ essays are presented as anecdotal evidence that the concerted use of these methods aids students both in the internalization of course content and the development of personal practices that will serve them well in and beyond their engineering careers.