Work-In-Progress: Teaching Innovation, Design Thinking, and Leadership through Origami.

In the past two decades, origami has been used in an increasing number of applications, across engineering disciplines. In addition to solar panels, surgical devices, robotic systems, and other engineering applications, origami has also been employed as an educational tool throughout the P-20 continuum. Specific to undergraduate engineering education, origami is most often used to teach advanced mathematical concepts, incorporating art into engineering, and creativity. At the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (School) at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the undergraduate Origami Engineering course was historically taught with a strong theoretical focus, developing advanced mathematical skills in our students. As we prepare to launch a new Innovation and Entrepreneurship track within our undergraduate curriculum, we are reimagining the course to also concentrate on innovation and leadership within the design thinking process, to be included in the track along with its current position in our leadership minor. This work-in-progress paper will begin with discussions on the framework used by the instructors, that is, teaching the design thinking process in parallel to team formation and leadership skills. The paper will highlight the major advancements to the course syllabus and its assessments, acknowledge key partners outside of the department, share feedback from students and teaching assistants, and identify extracurricular pathways that extend naturally from the course (e.g., design labs and/or entrepreneurial pathways). The paper will conclude with lessons learned from the first offering of the new version in Fall 2021, before gathering input from the community and establishing formal evaluations prior to the next offering of the course in Fall 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]