<p> 21^st Century skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving skills are very important when it comes to Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics or STEM. But those same skills should be integrated in social studies. The impact of students&rsquo; learning in social studies as a result of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies was the problem investigated in the study. Participants in the study included 22 third-grade African-American students in a self-contained classroom in a large urban school system. Instrumental apparatus used in the study were a pre- and post- survey, a frequency behavior checklist, and a 4-point rubric. Students were given a pre- and post- survey to assess their perception of their inquiry skills before and after the study. Observable behaviors were recorded over the next eight weeks. The research design chosen for the study was action research using a mixed-methods approach because action research was commonly used by teachers because of its practicality. The impact of students&rsquo; learning in social studies as a result of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies was that there was no impact between the inquiry-based instructional strategies and student achievement in social studies among 3^rd grade students based on the data from the Inquiry-Based Instructional Strategies 4-point rubric and the Inquiry-based Instructional Strategies Frequency Behavior Checklist. As a result, implications of the study include improving teacher pedagogy in inquiry-based learning and instructional strategies and more professional development in project-based learning and integration in social studies, and using current events to make social studies relevant.</p><p>

The design field of landscape architecture has yet to witness the broad adoption of online education, despite multiple studies that have demonstrated the efficacy of online education in design fields, or distributed design education (DDE), in teaching design. While previous research has focused on the structural, institutional, social, and pedagogical aspects of DDE, little work has focused specifically on barriers to the adoption of DDE from a faculty perspective. This dissertation reports the results of a meta-synthesis of the current literature on DDE and a national Delphi study. A list of the identified constraints of DDE was created through the use of the meta-synthesis. This list of constraints was subsequently used in the creation of the Delphi study to identify the critical barriers to the adoption of online education in landscape architecture. There were 24 barriers assessed during the Delphi study, 7 of which were identified as critical barriers. Findings indicate that faculty remain skeptical of the precedents reported in the literature, do not receive adequate compensation for online course development, and have significant concerns about the ability of online education to replicate the social environment of the design studio. A comparison of the ranked barriers and the most commonly researched constraints suggests that the current research on DDE does not adequately address the concerns of faculty.

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Design is a multidimensional activity involving a variety of skills and thought processes, including analytic reasoning, intuition, and creative expression. Learning how to design can be a frustrating and confusing process that some students find difficult to understand. Professors employ a range of strategies when teaching design. These strategies are often based on how their professors taught them with little or no theoretical basis in how students learn. For students, the failure to grasp the process of designing can challenge their willingness to stay motivated and actively engaged in the studio project. The result is less than optimal learning and students that do not achieve their full potential. One important factor that influences design learning is the process of self-regulated learning. Self-regulated learning (SRL) refers to a student's self-generated thoughts, strategies, and goal-directed behaviors. This study examined SRL in landscape architecture design studios in order to find out how students self-regulate their learning and performance on studio projects. Interviews with landscape architecture students were used to answer the research questions. Study findings suggest that landscape architecture students self-regulate their learning on studio projects through a process of engaging in design, then using SRL to address issues that arise during design, then generating more design issues that require additional SRL, and so on. The findings indicate that a student's ability to engage in SRL is based on their understanding of design as a complex set of behaviors and activities. Since students in each year have a different understanding of what designing entails, they use and engage in SRL differently. The findings suggest that high achievement in a design studio is a result of advanced knowledge that comes from the freedom to pursue additional issues beyond the basic requirements of the project. The freedom comes when a student attains the expertise to shift cognitive resources away from learning how to design and redirects them towards risk-taking, personal interests, and learning new information. The study sheds light on how students learn, engage, and self-regulate their learning in design studios and provides design educators with a basis for effective design teaching strategies. / Ph. D.

Industrial Design in China seldom addresses the issue of sustainability in mass production. Failure to incorporate sustainable design as a core principle will result in long term environmental and economic loss for both business and society. This research studies the current Industrial Design educational system in Mainland China and proposes a new educational framework to engage sustainability as a design objective. This study adopts the philosophical perspectives of constructivism, sustainable design theory, critical pedagogy, and systems thinking. Literature related to sustainability is collected and organized and overlaid with educational constraints identified through the interviews with educators, students, and practitioners of Industrial Design in four major cities of Mainland China. Using the grounded theory approach, from these two sources a new educational framework is proposed. The educational framework categorizes courses in a four year undergraduate Industrial Design educational program into four domains: ecological literacy, artistic, technological, and professional. Suggestions for the appropriate timeline, content, and pedagogical approaches for curriculum are also provided. The proposed framework was then critically reviewed Chinese educators that served as feedback for the final proposition. / Ph. D.

Design thinking ability is vital for engineers who are tasked with solving society's toughest sustainable development challenges. Prior research identified that the percentage of design thinkers among freshmen engineering students is greater than the percentage among the general population. However, engineering education's lack of attention to fostering creative ability may cause the design thinking ability of senior engineering students to suffer. The research addressed in this thesis compares the design thinking ability of engineering students across age groups, and compares design thinking ability between the design disciplines of engineering and architecture. To draw design thinking comparisons between these groups, a survey with a nine item design thinking instrument was distributed nationally to freshmen engineering students (n= 2,158), senior engineering students (n= 1,893), and senior architecture students (n= 336). The survey instrument was validated by conducting confirmatory factor analysis on the senior engineering and senior architecture samples' data. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test was utilized to statistically compare scores across sample groups. Both the freshmen engineering students (2.80) and senior architecture students (3.30) scored significantly higher on the design thinking scale than senior engineering students (2.59). These results have important implications for engineering educators as engineering education may contribute to a decrease in design thinking among senior engineering students. A lower design thinking score among seniors was consistent across all engineering sub-disciplines and should be of concern to engineering educators, since design thinking skills are critical for the development of engineering solutions to grand societal challenges. / Master of Science / Design thinking is a way of thinking about the design process which places the user at the center of the design. Thinking about design in this way is a vital ability for engineers and other design professionals to develop because it enables them to solve “wicked” problems like sustainable development challenges. Wicked problems are those which are difficult to solve due to the number of conflicting components involved. Prior research has found that design thinkers are more prevalent among engineering students in their first year of study than among students in other majors. However, engineering education does not attribute much attention to the development of creative ability which could cause the design thinking ability of engineering students in their final year of study to be worse than the ability of those in their first year, as well as worse than the ability of students who study other design disciplines like architecture. This study compared the design thinking abilities of engineering students in their final year of study to engineering students in their first year and to architecture students in their final year. The goal of making these comparisons was to explore if engineering education helps or hinders the development of design thinking. A survey with nine questions related to design thinking was distributed nationwide. The data from the survey was collected and statistically analyzed. The results showed that the design thinking ability of engineering students in their final year was significantly lower than the ability of first year engineering students and significantly lower than the ability of final year architecture students. A decrease in design thinking ability between freshmen and senior year must be addressed by engineering educators. The National Academy of Engineers and industry leaders are calling for the development of engineers who are design thinkers, and the results of this paper suggest that some changes may need to occur within the engineering education curriculum to accommodate this need.