Empowering Students to Learn How to Learn: Mass Customization of Graduate Engineering Design Course

The definitive article is published in The International Journal of Engineering Education, © Tempus Publications.ME 6101: Engineering Design is a graduate level course offered through the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. To empower students to learn how to learn, the orchestrators of ME 6101 strive to offer an individual course in a group setting. In this paper, the techniques utilized to create this type of learning environment are described in terms parallel to those of the mass customization paradigm. Excerpts from students' essays are presented as anecdotal evidence that the concerted use of these methods aids and empowers students both in the internalization of course content and the development of critical analysis, abstraction, and synthesizing skills that will help them become lifelong learners.Sloan Foundation Grant (99-3-8)National Science Foundation (DMI #0085136