Developing the Critical Thinking, Creativity and Innovation of Undergraduate Engineering Students

We present the framework of a novel upper-division undergraduate course that was developed to deliver disruptive and innovative applications of commercial technologies to an external funding agency and simultaneously develop the critical thinking, creativity and innovation of undergraduate engineering students. The course is structured as a deliberate interactive engagement between students and faculty that combines the Socratic method with the Thayer method to develop an understanding of disruptive and innovative technologies and a historical context of how social, cultural, and religious factors impact the acceptance or rejection of technological innovation. We present an assessment of this new course based on a course-end survey, several external indicators, a post-graduation survey and faculty assessment.