Teaching product design in line with Bloom's taxonomy and ABET student outcomes

Design is one of the highest-level activities in the engineering profession. Compared to many other areas predominantly involving closed-form solutions, design is an open-ended activity, with many possible solutions for the same problem. This shift from the concrete to the abstract makes teaching of engineering design courses more challenging. The target set forth by good academic institutions is to have a system in place that can produce graduates who are well equipped and suitably qualified to practice professional engineering in a continually changing and increasingly complex global environment. Bloom's taxonomy outlines the skill levels required for education at any level, and in any discipline. Accreditation agencies such as ABET also establish criteria that can be generally applied to any type of education, but are primarily focused on engineering education. The current paper describes a methodology for Product Design education, integrating both Bloom's taxonomy and ABET student outcomes in an activity-based environment. Creative Design course taught at the Mechanical Engineering Department at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat is presented as a case study. Example design activities are described for each of the six levels in Bloom's taxonomy. A mapping table is also presented to relate these levels to student outcomes of ABET criterion.