Establishing engineering design competencies for freshman/sophomore students

Transferable Integrated Design Engineering Education (TIDEE) is the name of a project at Washington State University in cooperation with faculty at the University of Washington and Tacoma Community College that involves curriculum development and faculty enhancement. Its objectives are to: (a) establish a curricular structure for transferable introductory design education in an environment of diverse institutions, curricula and students; (b) produce transportable curricular materials and instructional methods that support effective integrated engineering design education in transfer environments; (c) enable faculty at the institutions to adopt, implement and evaluate exemplary materials and methods suitable for their programs and their students; and (d) achieve increased enrolment and retention of students in early design courses. Key design competencies to be addressed will be identified so that students who enter an engineering program will be able to build on those competencies as they participate in design activities through the remainder of their program. Curriculum materials will be developed to meet learning objectives for introductory design in order to fit a variety of institutions, and to serve students with diverse backgrounds and interests. Faculty workshops across the state will transfer these learning objectives and strategies for achieving them in a variety of settings, and they will prepare faculty to adopt materials and methods to use in classes with diverse student populations. This paper discusses the details of how this project will be carried out and the outcomes expected