Abstract:

The Engineering Design Process (EDP) is recommended by national and international technology and engineering education standards to be taught in K12 education. An area of the EDP that is underserved is innovation. Generally, technology and engineering teachers do not explicitly teach innovation. This is a problem as innovation is considered by researchers as the ultimate competitive advantage for economic growth. This paper strives to delineate the ecology and complimentary aspects of engineering design and innovation. Unnecessary disconnects from innovation and engineering design are also considered. For example, one aspect of innovation that is absent from the engineering design curriculum is problem-finding. A proposed solution to these, and other issues, is to teach innovation explicitly at the outset of engineering design instruction.

Keywords:

Technology and engineering education, creativity, innovation, engineering design process.