Students routinely struggle with grasping and retaining the content of marketing research courses. To combat this problem, a new market research course was designed that applies all content in the course to an outdoors-based experiential learning project. Specifically, a hands-on nature therapy project was used that involves developing a marketing…

Fostering 'experiential learning' in real-life situations is a critical task for engineering educators when creating constructively aligned learning activities. The paper proposes an approach to measure the students' perception of learning in Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate activities conducted outside the classroom. The approach is based on the…

As digital media have become more embedded in all aspects of architects' design and representational work, a gap has been identified between architectural practices and the ways in which architecture is presented in museum exhibitions, which often rely on traditional media. In this chapter, we study digital creative processes in an architect firm,…

Biomimicry, the process of using nature to guide innovative thinking and development, can be useful in helping students grasp scientific concepts. Teachers interested in incorporating biomimicry into lesson plans might find that experiential learning at informal science institutions (ISIs) with natural models and artifacts is a valuable tool to…

The increased demand for design exhibitions directly reflects the demand for designer-curators to manage cultural policies and social needs. However, in the current design education system in Taiwan, no curation-related curriculum planning exists. Therefore, this study attempted to design a practical curation course focused on "designer…

Our everyday life is influenced by an overproduction of images and by an iconogenic surplus that is connected to the proliferation of media. These contribute to both the quality and quantity of communication, but simultaneously amplify the knowledge gap between an audience that is able to critically process messages and another that is affected…

Demonstration models allow students to readily grasp theory and relate difficult concepts and equations to real life. However drawbacks of using these demonstration models are that they are can be costly to purchase from vendors or take a significant amount of time to build. These two limiting factors can pose a significant obstacle for adding…

In this article, Lori Varlotta, president of small liberal arts institution Hiram College, describes how she and her team have launched a systemic change process that includes modifying the entire academic structure: first-year experience, majors, core curriculum, graduation requirements, and student learning outcomes. Hiram's model for academic…

Experiential learning is invaluable when promoting interdisciplinary approaches to teaching complex issues. This article reports on a five-week collaboration between undergraduate students in social work and landscape architecture courses, project impetus being a common-reading text. Students (n=54) constructed three-dimensional models of…

In this paper we examine a case study of a pedagogical strategy that focuses on the teaching of modeling as a habit of mind and practice for novice designers engaged in engineering design challenges. In an engineering design course, pre-service teachers created modeling artifacts in the form of conceptual models, graphical models, mathematical…

This paper presents an effort to revitalize a large introductory engineering course for incoming freshman students that teaches them analytical design through a project-based curriculum. This course was completely transformed from a seminar-based to a project-based course that integrates hands-on experimentation with analytical work. The project…

Computer science is continuously evolving during the past decades. This has also brought forth new knowledge that should be incorporated and new learning strategies must be adopted for the successful teaching of all sub-domains. For example, computer programming is a vital knowledge area within computer science with constantly changing curriculum…

Understanding the global, societal, environmental and economic (GSEE) context of a product, process or system is critical to an engineer's ability to design and innovate. The already packed curricula in engineering programs provide few occasions to offer meaningful experiences to address this issue, and most departments delegate this requirement…

We present some results of an ongoing research project where university engineering students were asked to construct videogames involving the use of physical systems models. The objective is to help them identify and understand the elements and concepts involved in the modelling process. That is, we use game design as a constructionist approach…

Technology is often perceived simplistically as applied science, and therefore regarded as inferior to science. Scholars of technology, however, reject the view that technology is applied science and insist that technology is a cognitive system consisting of a separate body of technological knowledge. Although science is acknowledged as an…