Developing an assessment regime for pan-mentoring in creative engineering design

Pan-mentoring (from the Greek pan meaning all, to indicate a mentoring relationship with a team of students) is a pedagogical approach to creative engineering design education establishing a close relationship with and within design teams of students. The role of the pan-mentor consists of: helping students to effectively tap into their creativity as individuals and as teams; guiding them through the design process at both the individual and team level; and encouraging self-reflection and assessment. This paper develops and discusses an assessment regime for the three elements of pan-mentoring in creative engineering design. In the regime, student assessment, course assessment, and pan-mentor assessment are utilized. In this paper, the only data discussed is from a questionnaire (course assessment) completed by freshmen students. The results from this part of the assessment regime were favorable.