Design notebooks as indicators of student participation in team activities

The motivation of this study is to enhance the traditional uses of design notebooks as teamwork assessment tools. Here, this is done by relating the individual student's entries in the design notebook to peer evaluations. The objective of this study is to show that design notebooks are also effective indicators of good teamwork participation. During the course, students are introduced to essential elements of reflective thinking in the engineering design, the design process, and teamwork. A pedagogical approach developed by the authors is used to guide the students to the completion of their engineering design project. This is a pedagogical approach to creative engineering design education that has previously been shown to establish a close relationship with and within design teams of students. The students are also instructed on the writing of effective design notebooks. The design notebooks are evaluated on five essential elements based on rubrics developed. A separate tool for peer evaluation of the team members is developed and applied. The correlation of the data obtained from design notebooks to that from the peer evaluation is discussed. Suggestions are made on how design notebooks could be enhanced to provide information on team dynamics.