Experiences scaffolding a computer engineering project course to improve student outcomes

Computer engineering instruction at many academic institutions depends on open-ended discovery-based project courses. Depending upon the pre-existing knowledge of students, success rates can vary. This experiential paper describes how one such course, offered to third-year junior-level students, was updated to improve student outcomes by scaffolding the relevant knowledge and skills required to complete the digital design project. These updates resulted in both (1) significantly better student project outcomes (from 18% of groups completing the project to 83%), and (2) improved student satisfaction surveys for the course (rising 12.8 percentage points).