Engaging Freshman Engineers Using the Paul-Elder Model of Critical Thinking

Introduction
The J.B. Speed School of Engineering is a medium-sized, urban, ABET-accredited institution in the 
southeast. Since 2006, entering freshman take an “Introduction to Engineering” course, a two credit 
hour course that meets the university’s “freshman experience” requirement. The course also gives 
freshman engineers an introduction to the engineering profession, engineering design, different 
engineering disciplines, and critical thinking. In the fall of 2011, there were 450 students in 12 sections 
taught by an instruction team of four faculty and six graduate teaching assistants. Critical Thinking 
became an explicit part of the course in response to the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), 
and the introduction to engineering course is responsible for teaching students the critical thinking 
framework adopted by the university. Another significant component of the course is department 
presentations. One entire class meeting (2 hours) is devoted to each of the seven degree granting 
engineering departments at the school, for a total of seven class meetings out of a total of 28 meetings 
for the semester.
When evaluating previous years, the instructional team identified two areas in need of improvement: 
engagement by students in the department presentations and reinforcement of the critical thinking 
framework. When the course was initially developed, department presentations were incorporated to 
introduce the department, its faculty, and research areas to freshman prior to the beginning of the fall 
advising schedule; with the emphasis on helping students confirm their choice of intended major. There 
were no assignments related to department presentations, and many students appeared to conclude that 

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presentations by departments other than those they were interested in were unimportant. Furthermore, to 
complete all department presentations before fall advising, the presentations took place on consecutive 
class meetings for three and one-half weeks, which exacerbated the lack of engagement. Presentation of 
the critical thinking framework has been improving each year. This course is one of the few places 
students receive explicit instruction on the critical thinking framework; however, familiarity with the 
framework and its use are implicitly a part of many other courses. To achieve familiarity with the 
framework, students need to explicitly and repeatedly use the framework over the course of the 
semester. This paper describes a critical thinking assignment intended to reinforce the critical thinking 
framework and increase students’ engagement in department presentations. Section two discusses the 
Paul-Elder framework and how it is used in critical thinking instruction in our Introduction to 
Engineering course. Section three gives a brief overview of department presentations in Introduction to 
Engineering courses. Section four describes the development of an assignment to reinforce critical 
thinking, in particular in terms of the Paul-Elder framework, and improve student engagement in 
departmental presentations. The results of a survey and faculty impressions are presented in section five 
with conclusions about the effectiveness of the exercise and its future use presented in section six.