Cultivation of Innovative Ability in Multi-level CDIO Workshops

The cultivation of innovative ability becomes increasingly important in now days and it is also clearly listed in students’ ability syllabus in our university. However, the innovation training is very weak at the present education system. Based on CDIO concept, a series of CDIO workshops are gradually built in our campus since 2012, which aim at training of innovative ability of undergraduates. In these CDIO workshops, students do some projects. They have own ideas first, then experience the whole process of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating in order to make their ideas come true. The CDIO workshops are design in three levels. The first level is basic innovation workshop, which aims to cultivation of creative consciousness for 1st year students. The second level is normal innovation workshop, which aims to training of basic innovation ability for 2nd year students without using specialized knowledge. The third level is specialty innovation workshop, which aims to cultivation of specialty technology ability for 3rd year students. The works in workshop are closely related to students’ major. In these multilevel workshops, we only provide basic tools, materials and components for students. Students need to design their projects by using the existing materials. There is no limit to the form of innovation project, but the project designed by students must show their own distinctive features. The projects in three level workshops are from easy to difficult. In this way, students’ creative consciousness and innovative ability are improved step by step. Up to now, there are about 60-70 student teams, about 200 students for electronic engineering major that have worked in these workshops. The feedback from students is positive. The motivation of the paper is to describe the practice process, project achievements and cultivating effect of innovation ability in CDIO workshop, and to discuss the improvement of future work in CDIO workshop.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016