EMBRACING FAILURE AS AN INTEGRAL ASPECT OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

In Engineering education, failure is generally considered unacceptable: catastrophic failures are typical horror stories relayed to students. This attitude is pervasive enough that many students become unwilling to explore creative ideas, or they may make seemingly unreasonable design decisions driven by their fear of failure. Students choose to remain in the space of Vincenti’s “normal design” where they know the operational principles and can manage all risks. They avoid the innovation space of “radical design” for fear of an unacceptable result and lack of guidance from teachers about how to navigate such high risk spaces. We believe that experiencing failure in a safe environment is a necessary part of transformative learning in line with the intentions of CDIO. Opportunities to explore tangents that may result in seeming failure need to be built into the curriculum, else the possibilities for creativity and discovery are reduced. The concept of what failure means and the value derived from it need to be examined. A safe space for failures must be created within the Engineering classroom for students to discover their innate courage to explore, innovate, and create. We propose specific methods for fostering such an environment, including implementing version control and documentation of project milestones, a non-hierarchical classroom environment, Non-Violent  Communication, and self-designed success criteria.