Reflective Decision-making: Social Impact Lab Toolkit Applied to a 4th Year Engineering Capstone Course

This article describes how critical service learning pedagogy is applied to a 4th year Capstone design course in electrical & computer engineering. We create a series of modules based on the Social Implications Lab toolkit developed at UBC. The modules’ goals are: to develop students’ reflective and collaborative decision-making abilities in the context of their Capstone project, and to provide instruction and assessment of the non-technical CEAB graduate attributes for the purpose of accreditation. Student data indicates that students recognize the importance of the individual reflection – team collaboration process. They describe ways that the modules have supported their solution to topics related to the non-technical CEAB graduate attributes. The student feedback identifies a number of ways that the module design could be made more effective including better connection to the Capstone course deliverables, more support in developing reflection and collaboration techniques, and more emphasis on relating projects to systemic social / environmental issues.