A symphony of designiettes exploring the boundaries of design thinking in engineering education

In this paper, we consider the integration of design into engineering curricula from the perspective of designiettes. Designiettes are glimpses, snapshots, small-scale, short turnaround and well-scoped design problems that provide a significant design experience. While most engineering programs around the world introduce design at distinct points in a curriculum, such as freshman and capstone design courses, we present the concept of a “4-D” design pedagogy, where design is integrated across courses, semesters, years, and extra-curricular activities. This pedagogy, or framework, may be implemented in whole or in part in any engineering program. Building on this design pedagogy, we present the context of designiettes in terms of educational theories, the I-Engineering, and assessment. We then explore the strategic development and use of designiettes, and present a literature review on small scale design project efforts as they relate to the concept of designiettes. This literature leads to a categorization of characteristics and questions that form a basis for creating designiettes for use in engineering curricula. Exemplar designiettes are then presented to illustrate their development and implementation process.

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