General Engineering Introduction/ASEE Paper/Open Ended Project Problem

The Open Ended Project Problem

The gray area between Open Ended and Canned Projects has been thoroughly explored and named. But there is still a lot of confusion. The definition used here is:

• students choose among a variety of new/old projects
• projects are never finished (endless improvement)
• instructors grade form and celebrate success

This needs to be the standard definition of an “Open Ended Project.”

Inspiration versus Content

Education research has shown that students walk away from open ended problems with more inspiration and less content. It is a narrative problem that students don't value the inspiration until after graduation. Engineering is fun when content and inspiration emerge together. K-12, content volume, and value discussions are important. But they discourage inspiration. The comparisons invited by competitions inspire only a few. Engineering has to be about adding back the inspiration, not continuing K-12 expectations.

Engineering project grading typically slips into K-12 expectations. Experts lecture and assign homework on content that seems random to the students or supports the single project that everyone does. Neither accomplishes the inspiration objectives of an open ended project.

This is done because there is no model for grading inspiration. The next section proposes how to do this easily. Inspiration can be graded just like in the engineering workplace: through project management accountability, documentation and presentations.

Project Management versus Content

The freshman engineering class needs to give up content. Instructors should not present themselves as experts. Freshman need to discover content themselves. They need to be forced to learn on their own. Instructors should point out options like a project manager.

The project management approach focuses on documentation, transparency and accountability. The documentation requirement creates a course management issue similar to engineering corporations. The goal is to hold individuals accountable and celebrate team success. Documentation should start off personal, and them move to team presentations and team documentation. Personal success can be withheld until the team's work is done.

Materials and Facilities

Projects need space. Space is normally created by demonstrating need. Large projects that create lots of noise, dust, and debris can justify facilities.

Facilities can only be built slowly. External money and grants normally increase existing success. They don't finance start up programs. Facilities have to be built slowly over time from what students leave behind, from junk and discards of other departments.

Open ended projects don't fit the K-12 efficiency expectations of lesson plans, materials lists and ordering of materials during the summer for the entire year. Efficiency expectations kill most open ended project enthusiasm and cause white elephant kit purchases. For example, open ended projects always involve searches for materials. Ordering materials requires a justification, a problem statement and confidence respected by the instructor. Ordering materials is a minor form of success that is missed if all materials are ordered during the summer by the instructor.

Scaffolding versus DIY University

Project scaffolding is an excuse some engineering schools use to lecture students, force them to purchase text books, and meet expertise expectations. No development of rapid-self learning, skimming, need to know, just in time, or design build talents are possible. Scaffolding kills inspiration, discourages documentation and sets the example of starting from the beginning. Students don't have to find a starting point and then reverse engineer backwards as well as engineer forwards.

Scaffolding denies prior work documentation exists that has to be leveraged. Some colleges deliberately delete all documentation after each semester's work. This creates an unethical, underground documentation system. It forces competition complexity increases. This creates a crippling negative feedback loop. Scaffolding denies freshman the opportunity to wrestle with the start over, catch up, or repeat previous success decisions that all engineers wrestle with. Scaffolding denies freshman scope and scale experiences that moderate K-12 delusions of grandeur.

Maker Magazine, DIY University concepts and Hacker Space successes are stealing the open ended project archetype. The signature of an Unall{Ø}cated Space member is “teach, learn, party.” If engineering colleges don't embrace open ended projects, they will continue to grow in DIY spaces.

Definition of Success

The big problem narrative forces an inflated definition of success that only a few can achieve. Engineering is about solving the small problems along a path of shifting scope, focus and subsystems. A suggested individual grading metric is “pushing the project forward”. Celebrating these tiny successes weekly in class is absolutely necessary.

Context

Projects don't have to be competitions. They can include: science demo, service, reverse engineering, art, improving, profiting, and inventing. The best project context is solving a problem defined by someone outside the introduction to engineering class ... someone called a "client". This reduces the need for the instructor to wear the client, customer, project manager and engineer hats.

Good Clients

A freshman engineering class works best when clients are outside the classroom. Ideally these are engineers in the community. Non-engineering clients are a lot of work. College support staff can help in two ways: educate non-engineering clients and become clients themselves.