Helping students classify and frame capstone geotechnical design courses

Students often express an anxiety about how knowledge is classified (i.e., differentiated) and framed (i.e., prioritized, and sequenced) in capstone design problems. This anxiety is by design as capstone design courses are meant to test students’ ability to solve complex problems that are weakly classified and framed. Nevertheless, educators can play a role in scaffolding student progress, so students advance past a conceptual understanding of problems to applying technical acumen learnt in prior years. This paper presents three geotechnical design projects set by the author, along with three interventions used to scaffold student progress. Projects included the design of an industrial waste facility for dry filtered residue, design of remedial works for a clay river embankment subject to undercutting, and design of a remining method for mine slimes contained behind a sand embankment. Interventions included requiring students to prepare, present and critique presentations based on weekly stage gates, collaboratively brainstorming, and ranking high level implications of a design, and collaboratively brainstorming specific implications of a design. When implementing such interventions care must be taken to ensure they remain student driven, or the learning benefits of a capstone design course may be lost.