Over the past several years, interest in competency-based education has steadily increased particularly in relation to vocational education, which prepares individuals for careers requiring specific craft, trade, or technical skills. In these cases, competencies are commonly “obtained and demonstrated” through distance learning by watching short videos, completing assignments, and passing online assessments demonstrating student ability to accomplish a series of learning objectives. This approach to competency-based education ensures students are able to master "doing" but provides little emphasis on "thinking." As such, little is known about how to incorporate competency-based education into traditional and professional bachelor degree programs such as engineering, which requires a greater focus on knowledge and skill integration. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a new approach to learning that goes beyond the proverbial "checking boxes" to provide an approach for demonstrating the integration of abilities and reflection. This innovative and experimental approach offers three unique attributes. First, it is competency-based in that students are required to demonstrate mastery of meeting core innovative competencies through submission of an artifact (“transdisciplinary-doing”) and reflection (“transdisciplinary-thinking”). Second, it is transdisciplinary in that learning experiences integrate the humanities into engineering, design, and technology skill sets. Finally, it is scaffold in that instruction of each of the four modules builds on the other, further enhancing and grounding the learning experience. This paper will explain our unique yet standardized approach through a semester-long course introducing engineering and technology students to innovation-related frameworks as an immersive approach to increase deeper transdisciplinary thinking through innovation. This funnel method is intentionally applied to guide students from (a) System's Thinking - big picture, holistic perspective to (b) Design Thinking - human-centered approach to problem solving to (c) Problem-Market Fit Analysis - value proposition identification, connecting customer needs to features of the product bundle to (d) Business Model Development - identifying and evaluating key abilities required to support bringing a new product to market. This funnel down innovation approach assists students in narrowing their scope and, at the same time, offers them a continuous push towards transdisciplinary doing and thinking. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2019
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