• What does design look like?
• What does it sound like?
• How do designers spend their time scoping out a problem, discovering user needs, developing alternative solutions and communicating about design decisions?
• Does amount of prior experience make a difference in how designers choose to spend time in these aspects of the design process?
• How can insights from the answers to these questions inform design teaching and learning?
• What can classroom reflection activities tell us about what students think is important about the design process?

Dr. Atman will present findings from research undertaken for two decades that can inform answers to these questions. This will take the form of a variety of design process representations such as the timeline presented here. Audience members will be invited to interact with design representations and reflection activities that can be used to facilitate design learning.

Timeline of expert engineering designer completing a three-hour design task in a laboratory setting

PD: Problem Definition, GATH: Gathering Information, GEN: Generating Ideas, MOD: Modeling,

FEAS: Feasibility Analysis, EVAL: Evaluation, DEC: Decision Making, COM: Communication

Bio

Cynthia J. Atman is the founding director of the Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching (CELT), a professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering, and the inaugural holder of the Mitchell T. & Lella Blanche Bowie Endowed Chair at the University of Washington. Dr. Atman is co-director of the Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education (CPREE), funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. She was director of the $12 million NSF-funded Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE), a national research center that was funded from 2003-2010. Her research focuses on engineering design learning, considering context in engineering design, and the use of reflection to support learning. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Dr. Atman holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.