When students choose competencies: Insights from the competency-specific engineering portfolio studio

Recent work in engineering education has made it clear that for students to be prepared to function effectively as engineers, they will need to acquire a diverse set of competencies by the time they graduate. In this research, we explored students´ experiences with an innovative pedagogy - a competency-specific, engineering-preparedness portfolio studio - as a means to support students in being prepared with respect to specific competencies. In this work, we showed that when given the opportunity to choose, students select a range of competencies for quite sophisticated reasons. Furthermore, when in this studio environment for multiple experiences, students engaged in deeper reflection and meaning making about prior experiences. Finally, through this environment students supported one another through formal and informal peer learning.