Capstone courses are by their very nature complex. Students are tasked with synthesis of material learned in earlier courses, and need to solve complex, open-ended problems, while demonstrating effective teamwork skills. The learning outcomes of capstone courses typically match all or most of the ABET learning outcomes, so these courses are also important for program accreditation. Designing or redesigning a capstone course is both challenging and rewarding. Effective course design directly affects the development of student career readiness and life skills, and departmental ABET accreditation. From an educational standpoint, capstones provide opportunities for authentic learning by requiring application of major-specific knowledge to solve open-ended problems. This toolkit consists of modules for Capstone Design Course Instructors with concrete suggestions for scaffolding and creating an appropriate level of challenge, creating diverse teams and increasing the odds of effective teamwork, structuring the course for students to synthesize material from multiple prerequisite courses with new discipline-specific content and a big-picture perspective of a real-world application, making students more comfortable with ambiguity and open-ended problems, and designing assignments that develop workforce and life skills, with rubrics that reinforce the importance of these skills.

Creator

• Levey, Fiona

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Keyword

• Project-based learning
• Capstone
• Course design
• ABET
• Accreditation
• Scaffolding
• Technical collaboration
• Team effectiveness

Date created

• August 2023

Resource type

• Capstone Project

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2024-03-01