Adaption and evolution of a first year design project week course-From Germany to the United States to MongoliaFirst year design projects are needed to introduce students early in their studies to design work,prepare students for open-ended, real-life, complex problems seen in industry, and give studentsa positive perspective on their upcoming coursework during their degree program. Introductionto German Engineering (IGE) fulfills these purposes along with promoting interdisciplinarywork and professional skills, especially the development of team competencies integrated withinthe subject-related process of problem solving. It is a first or second year course taught tointroduce students to the German engineering design process and project work in groups. It wasdeveloped in 1998 at a German University (GX) Mechanical Engineering department incooperation with the group, Center of Didactics at GX. Through this collaboration, students arealso taught professional skills such as group management, team work skills, and communicationwithin the context and integration of problem solving. IGE was then expanded to an internationalexperience with two participating American universities, AX and AY. It has most recently beenadapted and taught at a Mongolian University, GX. This paper will discuss the major aspects ofthe course, in particular, the support system and method of instruction, the expansion of theoriginal course to an interdisciplinary, international course, adaptions of the course for GX,general success of the course in all of its forms, and future developments of the course.
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Pinkelman et al. (2015) studied this question.