A behavior-centric concept for engineering education in new product development

This paper addresses the need for novel formats in engineering education preparing students to create value. Following the approach of constructive alignment, it proposes an educational concept for a university course. Therefore, it first consolidates requirements from literature specifying the desired qualification of future engineers in New Product Development contexts. It then derives ten learning outcome statements for a course. The statements specify desirable student behavior targeting the proposed requirements for future engineers. As learning is constructed by what activities students carry out, learning activities and course elements are systematically derived from the course goals sourcing know-how from successfully established teaching concepts and the author's experience with hands-on teaching formats. The final course framework comprises an educational part, specifying course parameters and elements such as duration, team roles or coaching strategy. It also comprises a methodological part, specifying a human-centered prototyping methodology that guides students during the problem-solving process. The parts work hand in hand and seek to provide a safe environment while pushing students to show, experience, and train the desired behavior. The result is a ten-day makeathon in which students from various disciplines form interdisciplinary teams, identify and understand real world problems, iteratively prototype and test ideas, and develop minimum viable products considering their solutions' desirability, feasibility and viability. Key factors to push for commitment and results are intensity, autonomy, and communication. The framework is employed and tested within the format Think.Make.Start. at Technical University of Munich with students from different disciplines (n=41). The student's learning progress is assessed by coaches observing and rating the performance of all teams each day through a questionnaire regarding the ten behavioral indicators. While the preliminary test suggests that the concept successfully fosters the desired behavior, it identifies the need for further research in assessing students' behavioral competencies objectively and individually in order to scientifically evaluate their learning progress.