Considering Perspectives and Positions in Engineering and Design

In this 80-minute session, students will examine how their own perspectives, identities, motivations, and social positions shape the ways they approach engineering and design work. The session introduces four key concepts — power, identity, motivation, and equity — as lenses for understanding how engineering and design decisions are made and whom those decisions affect.

Through discussion and analysis of specific engineering and design examples, students will explore how these concepts influence real-world design choices and outcomes. They will then reflect on how their own assumptions, experiences, and values may shape the decisions they make as designers and engineers. By the end of the session, students will be better prepared to approach design work with greater awareness, responsibility, and attention to equity.

Create an Account to Download

Learning Outcomes

After reading and actively engaging with this document, students will be able to:

• Identify and articulate their own assumptions and values related to the nature of engineering and design.
• Explain how power, identity, motivation, and equity shape engineering and design processes, decisions, and outcomes.
• Analyze real-world engineering and design examples using the concepts of power, identity, motivation, and equity.
• Reflect critically on how their own positions, identities, motivations, and assumptions may affect the design choices they make in their own projects, particularly with respect to equity.
  

Key Themes

• Engineering and design as sociotechnical work
• Role of power, identity, motivations and equity in engineering and design decisions
• Tools to analyze own’s positionality, identity, and motivations
• Analysis of real-world examples of engineering and design

Who Might Use This Resource?

• First-year students in foundational design courses for different disciplines
• Students in co-curricular design teams
• Capstone courses for different disciplines
• Co-curricular programs in engineering research and practice

What You Get

Facilitated Learning Package

For instructors teaching the material in an 80 minute session.

• Instructor Orientation Guide
• Lesson Plan for 80-minute class session
• Slide Deck with Facilitation Script, Annotations, and Supplemental Bibliography
• Student handouts
• Assessment Prompts
• References

Independent Learning Package

For learners to complete asynchronously.

• Instructor Orientation Guide
• Independent Learning Document with embedded activities and questions
• Student handout
• Assessment Prompts
• References