Missing Basics, EF2009 version, Barcelona

The Missing Basics:What Engineers Don’t Learn & Why They Don’t Learn Them
David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801 USAdeg@illinois.edu
© David E. Goldberg 2009

Engineering Education Reform in the Air
Personal context: Transformation in a tough neighborhood.
Engineering education incomplete & many calls for reform.
Many lists the same: More “design,” “people” skills, “communication.” But little or local change.
Faculty resist “soft” skills as not “rigorous.”
Argue problem is in part philosophical and in part organizational:
Engineering does not understand itself well enough to cultivate its young.
School structure needs practical reform to permit kaizen and community.
Paint coherent systems picture of effective change. Change minds & organizations.

Roadmap
Industrial-sposored senior design: What don’t they know how to do?
7 qualitative thinking skills for unlocking the joy of engineering (JoE).
3 misconceptions that hold us back from JoE.
From JoE to joy of community (JoC) with iCommunity.
From old school teaching to joy of learning (JoL).
Academic change as a NIMBY problem.
iFoundry: Organizational change for educational innovation.
75 amazing freshmen and the Olin effect.

Begin with the End in Mind: Senior Design
Senior design as way to see the end.
Joined General Engineering at University of Illinois 20 years ago.
A key reason: Wanted to teach industrial-sponsored senior design.
Grinter report of 1955: more math & science, less design.
Illinois program started with Ford Foundation grant 1966.
Money ran out 1971 and industrial funding supports thereafter.
Stephen R. Covey (b. 1932)

A Special Moment: Ready, Set, Go
These are seniors.
Should be engineers on the threshold.
Top cold war engineering education.
Express preferences for projects.
Get assigned to a project: 3-member teams & faculty advisor.
Go on the plant trip.
Query: What don’t they know how to do?
20 years of coaching, here’s my list.

Failure 1: Inability to Ask
Don’t know how to frame or ask good questions.
Difficulty probing the problem.
Trouble querying what has been tried.
Problem learning about vendors and sources of information.
Historical terms: Socrates 101.
Socrates (470-399 BCE)

Failure 2: Inability to Label
Don’t know names of common systems, assemblies, and components of technology.
Engineering graduates as technologically illiterate.
Worse: Difficulty labeling new artifact concepts or models.
Example: burnt flour problem.
Mainly comfortable with familiar categories and objects.
Historical terms: Aristotle 101.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Failure 3: Inability to Model
Don’t know how to model conceptually:
As causal chain.
As categorical list of types or kinds.
Pavlovian dogs when it comes to equations.
Need to understand problem qualitatively in words and diagrams prior to quantitative modeling undertaking.
Historical terms: Hume 101 or Aristotle 102.
David Hume (1711-1776)

Failure 4: Inability to Decompose
Don’t know how to decompose big problem into little problems.
Looking for magic bullets in equations of motion.
Most projects too hard: Companies don’t pay $9500 for plugging into Newton’s laws.
Historical terms: Descartes 101?
René Descartes (1596-1650)

Failure 5: Inability to Measure
Don’t know how to measure stuff or collect data.
Engineering taught as abstract math/science exercise.
Ignore benefit of direct measurement.
Historical terms: Locke 101 or Bacon 101?
John Locke (1632-1704)

Failure 6: Inability to Visualize/Ideate
Don’t know how to draw sketches or diagrams when helpful.
Have trouble envisioning solutions.
Graphics education greatly diminished.
Historical terms: da Vinci or Monge 101.

Failure 7: Inability to Communicate
Finally finish the project.
Don’t know how to present or write for business.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Historical terms: Newman 101.
Paul Newman (1925-2008)

The Basics versus the Missing Basics
“The Basics:” math-science death march followed by engineering science.
Missing basics (MBs): questioning, labeling, modeling conceptually, decomposing, measuring, visualizing/ideating, & communicating.
MBs as more basic than “the basics.”
No surprise: 5th century BC in Athens as pivotal place & moment in human thinking.
Missing basics covers thinking skills critical to engineers: design, communications, people skills.
Complete engineering education leads to joy of engineering.

Do Engineers Need the Missing Basics?
Yes!! But why don’t they get them.
Three conceptual misunderstandings block joy of engineering:
Engineering is mainly math & science.
World is hierarchical & specialized.
Qualitative skills important for well roundedness, not engineering.
From joy of engineering to two more joys.

Engineering: Just Math & Science Applied?
Usual: Engineering is applied math & science.
Other views:
Von Karman: “A scientist discovers that which exists. An engineer creates that which never was.”
Koen: Engineering is heuristics.
Pitt: Technology is “humanity at work.”
Mesthene: Technology is “the organization of knowledge for achievement of practical purpose.”
Here: “Engineering is the social practice of conceiving, designing, implementing, producing, & sustainingfunctionallycomplex artifacts, processes, or systems appropriate to some recognized need.”

Same Old World: Hierarchical & Specialized?
Usual: Engineer as narrow & specialized category enhancer in hierarchical, domestic organization.
Paradigm OK for WW2 & Cold War.
Now a creative era, a flat world.
Missed revolutions since WW2:
Quality revolution.
Entrepreneurial revolution.
IT revolution.
Here: engineer as interdisciplinary, integrative category creator inflat, global organization.

Qualitative Skills Needed to be Well-Rounded?
Usual: Qualitative skills developed in humanities & SS courses make “well-rounded” or “cultured” individuals.
Here: Missing basics essential to being a great engineer.
Seek qual-quant balance to make great engineers.

The Joy(s) of Engineering (JoE)
These misconceptions block achieving the joy of engineering qua engineering.
Engineering reduced to merely technical analysis vs. engineering as creative, integrative enterprise serving human needs.
3 iFoundry student aspirations:
Create cool technology (products & services)
Wannabe the next Max Levchin (entrepreneurial).
Want to create sustainable world & solve societal problems (service)
New class: ENG 100 ++, Intro to Missing Basics of Engineering.

From JoE to JoC (Joy of Community)
Cliché of cold war engineering education.
Engin profs used to say the following:
“Look to your left. Look to your right.”
“One of the three of you won’t make it!”
Statistically correct: 50%-70% survive.
Pedagogically improper.
Why take pride in failure of capable students?
Assumption: “Rugged individuals” must survive selective “weed out” process to be successful.

Research Shows Otherwise
Russ Korte’s work on transitions:
College to work
HS to College
Single most important variable in transition success social connectedness (SC).
Critical element of iFoundry is what we call iCommunity.
Russell Korte

iCommunity
Student-run learning community.
iLaunch with team ropes course in Fall 2009.
75 students in 4 iTeams, elected iChairs.
Cooperate to perform 4 functions: academics, service, social/identity, world of work.
iCheckpoint/iExpo
Each team supported by iFA, iSA, and iCOA
4 iTeams aligned with student aspirations:
Art & engineering design (AED).
Services & systems engineering (SSE).
Entrepreneurship & innovation (EI).
Engineering in service of society (ESS).

Look to Left & Right: iFoundry Version
Try it again:
Look to your left. Look to your right.
In iFoundry those two people crucial supporters to help you complete a challenging learning experience.
iLaunch is primarily about the joy of community.
Not an accident that we start with this.
iCommunity calculus: How can we form a supportive group and become great engineers together?

What Needed for Joy of Community?
What skills necessary to become tight knit supportive community?
Need to probe and ask questions of others.
Need to label challenging people problems.
Need to create and communicate.
You need the missing basics!!!
Joy of community, teamwork, leadership, facilitated by mastery of the missing basics.

Teaching: Another Blast from the Past
In old model, students were passive vessels.
Professors poured knowledge into their brains.
Assumes static world of engineers as category enhancers.
Three flavors of iStudent as category creators:
Cool new technology.
Entrepreneurs & innovators.
Working with developing cultures.
Common thread: Need to create new stuff & need to keep learning.
Learning in creative era is never ending enterprise.

Research on Tech Visionaries as Clue
Helpful to look at extreme exemplars of success.
Price, Vojak, & Griffin have done work on tech visionaries (TVs).
TV creates bottom line revenue from new products & services.
T-shaped person both broad and deep.
TVs are dynamic Ts.
Do deep dive in unfamiliar area to make new products.
Ray Price

How to Be a Joyful Lifelong Learner?
What skills do you need to be a dynamic T or lifelong learner?
Need to ask framing questions.
Need to learn lingo of new areas & connect to things understood.
Need to collect data in new situation.
Need to come up with creative solutions appropriate to situation.
You guessed it. The missing basics are the key.

A Vision with Systemic Coherence
Taken together three joys—JoE, JoC, JoL—can help align engineering education with the times.
Missing basics tie all three together: Critical & creative thinking skills cut across joy of engineering, community & learning.
iCommunity provides social connectedness to provide student self-reliance and commitment.
So what’ holding us back?

“We Have Met the Enemy & He is Us”
Famous Pogo cartoon.
Trash-strewn forrest.
“Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.”
Applies to engin ed.
Organizational dynamics & faculty as key obstacle to change.

Academic Change is a NIMBY Problem
Academic NIMBY problem.
NIMBY = Not in my backyard.
“It is OK to change the curriculum…”
“….just don’t change MY course.”
Politics of logrolling: You support my not changing. I support your not changing.
Even though agreement for change is widespread, specific changes are resisted.

Organizational Innovation for Change
Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry):
Curriculum change incubator. Permit change.
Collaboration. Large, key ugrad programs work together. Easier approval if shared.
Connections. Hook to depts, NAE, ABET (?), industry.
Volunteers. Enthusiasm for change among participants.
Existing authority. Use signatory authority for modification of curricula for immediate pilot.
Respect faculty governance. Get pilot permission from the dept. and go back to faculty for vote after pilot change
Assessment. Built-in assessment to overcome objections back home.
Scalability. Past attempts at change like Olin fail to scale at UIUC and other big schools.
www.ifoundry.illinois.edu

iFoundry Institutional View
iFoundry components:
iSteering: Coordinate iFoundry & College leadership.
iCommunity: Student-run engineering learning community.
iFoundry Council: Coordinates iFoundry with academic departments.
Olin-Illinois Partnership: Coordinates Illinois with Olin College and engineering education establishment.
3SpaceStudios: Exposes iFoundry ideas and practices to general public.

Admitted First iFoundry Freshmen 2009
iFoundry grassroots phase Summer 07.
College activity Fall 08.
75 freshmeniLaunch on August 22, 2009 with overnight retreat.
iTeam selections and iChair elections that week.
iCheckpoint October 14, 2009.
Socially connected.
Missing basics internalized.
Projects help establish engineering identity.
Calling shots on what iCommunity and iTeams do.
Surprising changes.
AED iChair: Claire Slupski

Surprise!! Olin Effect on a Budget
Went to Franklin W. Olin College first time February 2008.
Moving experience: Talked to freshmen during heat-sink measurements.
Pride in engineering.
Confidence & boldness.
Seeing this “Olin Effect” in our freshmen.
Even though curriculum & pedagogy is still largely the same.
Can we get important change with small number of strategic moves?
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Summary: Conceptual Shifts

Summary: Organizational Shifts

Bottom Line
Philosophical reflection key to
righting past errors
developing coherenttransformativevision
conceptual rigor for subjects otherwise rejected as “soft.”
Organizational reconfiguration necessary to
achieve social connectedness among students
permit ongoing pilot and change.
To soon to be sure, but changes so far may be yielding boldness, confidence & engineering identity with fewer resources than previously thought.
Can make effective change in tough neighborhood.

More Information
iFoundry: http://ifoundry.illinois.edu
Talk: http://www.slideshare.net/deg511
EotF2.0: http://engineerofthefuture.olin.edu
iFoundryYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/illinoisfoundry
iFoundrySlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/ifoundry
TEE, the book. http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470007230.html
fPET-2010: www.philengtech.org or www.twitter.com/philengtech
Twitter: www.twitter.com/deg511, www.twitter.com/ifoundry

fPET-2010: Philosophy & Engineering
2010 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering & Technology (fPET-2010), 9-10 May 2010, Sunday evening to Monday, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO.
One-day intensive event.
50-50 philosophers and engineers.
Grows out of earlier events WPE-2007 & WPE-2008.
www.philengtech.org

Missing Basics, EF2009 version, Barcelona

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