The design processes of engineering educators: Thick descriptions and potential implications. Design Thinking Research Symposium VI Proceedings. Retrieved from http://research.it.uts.edu.au/creative/design/acceptedPapers.html

The goal of this paper is to shed light on the design strategies of engineering faculty. While there already exists a large body of research in understanding the design processes of students and practicing engineers, less work has been done to understand the design processes of engineering educators. However, the engineering educators offer students their first introduction to engineering design. By examining the design processes of engineering faculty members, we can gain a new perspective on engineering design practices in addition to insight into students ’ learning of design. Here we present both quantitative and qualitative data concerning the design processes of four engineering faculty members. The results suggest that faculty designers ’ processes are very diverse. We offer some implications of the variety in educators ’ design processes with an emphasis on possible teaching opportunities and challenges suggested by the data. nyone who has been involved in design education realizes the complexity entailed. We can start to unpack this complexity by turning to relevant research in education. Such research suggest