A method for teaching problem assessment [engineering education]

In practice, engineers face open-ended problems that they must define and solve. In contrast, engineering class assignments are often well defined. In order to facilitate student learning in exploring and formulating problems, an interactive assignment structure is proposed. In this paper, a project assignment structure is presented to encourage students to ask questions, to cross disciplines in seeking information, and to be creative in defining a problem and developing solution alternatives. A specific implementation of the proposed method is described