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


Download 407.01 Kb.
Pdf ko'rish
bet9/12
Sana19.06.2023
Hajmi407.01 Kb.
#1611609
1   ...   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12
Bog'liq
ASEE-2012-FirstYear-final paper

5. Discussion of Results 
The survey results appeared to confirm that students appreciate the activities that faculty are providing 
to meet the course goals. Responses concerning the critical thinking activities and “Analyze the 
Discipline” exercises received what amounted to average ratings from the class.
After reviewing the work of the selected students (Tables 2 and 3), and referring back to both Nosich 
and exemplars of analysis of engineering disciplines provide by Paul et al.
1
, these observations are 
made: 
1. The elements point of view and assumptions are hard to grasp. It is clear that faculty need to discuss 
the elements more thoroughly during the lecture about the Paul-Elder framework. More interactive 
small group activities to reinforce this would be beneficial. Many student answers took the view of 
“what do people assume ABOUT …engineers”, despite the assignment asking specifically for 
assumptions engineers make. One faculty presenter actually mentioned something like “everyone 
assumes CEEs wear hard hats”. Several students took that as the answer to what they were supposed 
to answer and then they kept that same context for the following assignments! Some of the 
presenters even seemed to struggle with exactly how to answer questions related to point of view.
This remains a challenge as to how to work with faculty from other departments.


Table 2. Sample of student responses on “analyze the discipline” assignments. 
Discipline 
Civil and Environmental 
Engineering 
Bioengineering 
Computer Engineering and Computer 
Science 
Purpose 

They design and build the nation’s 
transportation, supply and energy 
systems and solve problems of 
today’s society such as water 
supply, urban congestion, waste 
disposal, and conservation 

Build bridges, 
structures/infrastructure 

Develop health related products and 
techniques to improve quality of life 

Apply engineering to medicine and 
biology 

Focuses on programming languages, data 
and information representation, storage and 
processing, and algorithms and computability 

Design and develop hardware and software 
systems 
Implications 

Death from structural failures, 
damage to environment 

Fresh water to 3
rd
world countries 

Create many structures that make 
our daily lives convenient 

If something were to go wrong with a 
device or medicine…the consequence 
could be fatal 

In the realm of ethics and human 
conscience, any process or product 
meant to repair biological processes in 
humans must be rigorously tested
because they can mean the difference 
between life and death of a patient 

New technology makes surgery safer 
with a shorter recovery time 

Because of CECS we are able to 
study/research bioinformatics, medical 
informatics, numerical analysis, 
computational chemistry, and simulation and 
modeling.

Faster computers, better quality of life 

A consequence of CECS could be a 
broken/faulty code in the software that runs a 
chemotherapy machine that causes it to 
release too much radiation which could kill a 
person. 
Assumptions 

Assume drivers behave a certain 
way on the bridge 

They have to assume how much 
what they build will be used in the 
future 

Civil engineers only do bridges

It is just like architecture 

Design product that causes least harm. 
People want to heal as fast as possible 

Their main interest is helping/serving the 
patient 

Always be a way to make life better for 
patients 

Assume people typically follow the 
same health patterns 

A computer will compute flawlessly. Errors 
are usually user based. Modeling with a 
computer is more efficient than by hand 

They work on computers all day 

That a computer program can accurately 
represent a real-world event 

There are some problems a computer cannot 
solve 
Point of 
View 

Structural, environmental, water 
resources, transportation 

Usefulness to the public, durability, 
aesthetics 

Many civil engineers are willing to 
give up a percentage of salary vs 
other disciplines for the opportunity 
to do work that has society benefits 

Different fields (prosthetics, research, 
medical techniques, etc) 

Bioinformatics, bioinstrumentation, 
biomaterials, imaging, rehabilitation 

The human body is a complex system 
that we must strive to understand so that 
we may improve its systems 

Computer languages, how a computer/device 
interprets input, need to think in terms of a 
consumer/user to make the devices more 
appealing/affordable 

Every problem can be modeled 

Security, programmers, artificial intelligence, 
statistics, algorithms 

They look at things analytically. They also 
look at how to improve and progress 
technology 



Download 407.01 Kb.

Do'stlaringiz bilan baham:
1   ...   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12




Ma'lumotlar bazasi mualliflik huquqi bilan himoyalangan ©fayllar.org 2024
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling