Manufacturing serves as a fundamental pillar of America's economic resilience and national security, exerting a critical influence across nearly every sector of the U.S. economy. To address global competition and maintain a leading role, it is essential to develop, scale, and promote the advanced manufacturing workforce by integrating advanced manufacturing into STEM education and expanding the use of emerging learning technologies and practices. As a central and strategic element of the manufacturing sector, Product Design and Manufacturing (PD&M) adds high value by bridging creative design with practical manufacturing. Proficiency in PD&M demands not only technical knowledge but also intuitive judgment shaped by extensive practical experience, sophisticated decision-making abilities, and strong adaptability to novel and unpredictable challenges. As such, human involvement remains crucial and irreplaceable in PD&M. Current educational approaches have proven insufficient in adequately preparing students for these cognitive-demanding roles. The path to these demanding manufacturing roles can be non-traditional and thus it is essential to study the construction of knowledge so that alternate educational pathways can be developed. This study aims to understand cognition of learning in an applied experiential learning environment and there is potential for the knowledge gains to impact other critical areas of STEM workforce development. The primary objective of this research