Frontiers in Computer Education

Frontiers in Computer Education – Wang (ed.)

© 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-02797-8

Teaching reform and practice of industry design specialty based on the

Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate (CDIO) engineering

education pattern

Ge Lu

Department of School of Art & Design, Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management,

Zhengzhou, China

ABSTRACT: CDIO is an engineering educational concept. This paper analyses the feasibility that puts

the CDIO engineering education pattern into the industrial design major. For industrial design major of the

Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management, the paper introduces the preliminary exploration

and experience in guiding the mode into the teaching reform of industrial design specialty, in order to provide a

teaching reference for the industrial design course at undergraduate colleges and universities.

1 MODE OF HIGHER ENGINEERING

EDUCATION

CDIO stands for Conceive, Design, Implement, and

Operate. It is currently a concept of talent cultiva-

tion of higher engineering education, its name inspired

by the life cycle processes of product/system, which

embodies the life circle from development stage to

the modify and abandon stage of the modern indus-

trial products. Based on the current situation, CDIO

higher engineering education model takes the con-

ception, design, implementation, and operation as the

carrier to train students’ ability for engineering, which

includes not only academic knowledge, but also stu-

dents’ life-long learning skills, team communication

ability, and system control ability.

CDIO emphasizes cultivating the comprehensive

innovative capability of students through the project

process (concept-design-implement-runs) to meet the

employment needs of the industry, which coincides

with the basic ideas of professional education. CDIO

educational philosophy has a strong systematic rigor

and operability, which is inspiring and instructive

for the improvement of the professional training pro-

gramme.

2 TEACHING REFORM AND PRACTICE OF

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

a) Curriculum integration

According to engineering requirements for higher

engineering education, engineering colleges and uni-

versities should offer four courses: personality edu-

cation curriculum, engineering science and natural

science courses, social sciences, a humanities sci-

ence course, and an engineering course. Each course

may include a core course (compulsory), a series

of elective courses and the corresponding teaching

practice (experimental courses, course-related training

activities, internships, social activities, etc.). Industrial

design courses present various professional courses

and specialized courses for reintegration based on

the specific needs of professional settings, forming

a course which takes the product design as the core

course and consolidates the basic knowledge. Prac-

tical teaching includes a corresponding curriculum

(transport thematic design, furniture design), an exper-

imental course, a graduation project (actual design

or simulation design, engineering, and testing) and a

proper engineering training. Graduation design should

be prompted to strengthen students’ integrated appli-

cation of engineering knowledge and engineering

capacity.

In the training programme of industrial design, in

accordance with the intellectual content, an integrated

curriculum can be divided into: modelling, engineer-

ing, engineering technology, design theory and expres-

sion, humanities and social sciences, and economics

management. Project courses can be divided into:

professional foundation, foundation design, improve-

ment, and innovation. Practice teaching includes:

internship, curriculum design, and graduation design.

A CDIO model places great emphasis on the

cooperation of the project class, integration courses,

and practice teaching. Figure I lists the correspon-

dence relationship among the project class, the inte-

gration course, and practical teaching. CDIO-based

industrial design is different from the traditional

three-section structure (basic course- basic special-

ized courses-specialized courses). The former takes

199