Abstract
This study introduces an engineering design class which is experimental in a sense that it is planned and implemented with three key concepts such as learner-centered education, living lab and community based learning. With the class run in being connected with one regional community in Seoul, it focuses on its educational effects acquired through the living lab-based approach. And this research investigates the student's experiences of when, what and how they learn in a learner-centered class. It shows that, rather than taking professor's one dimensional lectures in classroom, the students learn actively when they face with the problem in the field. Students have come to carry out engineering design from the perspective of stakeholders, not from the supplier or producer's perspective in the process of meeting with the problem in reality. Team based collaborative activities are crucial in the entire design process. More importantly, students' design products have been transformed into more useful and meaningful ones as stakeholders of the local community have participated into the students' works. However, we need to recognize that there are some important issues that need to be solved institutionally and systematically in order for such educations to spread. This study suggests several educational arrangements for those issues.
