Empowering Professional Teaching in Engineering. John Heywood
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of this kind of learning are considered. The journey ends with a brief section headed by the question “Is engineering a discipline?”
Associated with Jerome Bruner is the idea of “spiral curriculum” in which concepts are revisited on several occasions during the course, but at deeper levels of abstraction. Journey 8 begins with a discussion of this model. It raises questions about how engineering is related to the school curriculum, and an example of a primary school project in which children in the age range 5 to 13 engaged in min-company activities is given Those who sponsored the activity believed that entrepreneurs would only emerge if attention was paid to the development of entrepreneurial skills throughout the age range of schooling. The Spiral curriculum also relates to intellectual development. The significance of Piaget’s work, and studies of intellectual development in higher education by Perry, and King and Kitchener are considered.
Bruner’s discovery learning was criticised by among others David Ausubel. Although a very strong advocate of expository learning, he was concerned with the way in which learning is organized. He is noted for the concept of the “advanced organizer”. Its use in instructional practice begins Journey 9. The importance of prior knowledge in learning and the development of memory is emphasized. The journey ends with a discussion or cognitive organization and mediating responses. Much care needs to be taken in the preface to instruction if that instruction is to be meaningful to students
Meaningful learning requires that students understand concepts. The role of concepts in learning, and in particular the work of Robert Gagné is the subject matter of Journeys 10 and 11. One of the reasons why students find qualitative thinking in engineering difficult is that they have an inadequate understanding of concepts to the extent that they are misperceived. How to deal with misconceptions is a major problem for instructors. The most common heuristic used in instruction is the “example”. Research shows that some approaches to the use of examples are better than others. Learning concepts often takes time and many teachers do not take a step by step approach because of beliefs about the need to cover the syllabus. This seems to be a central issue in teaching. It seems probable that a lot of the difficulties experienced by engineering students, especially in the freshmen year, arise from a shortage of time to assimilate the learning of the concepts being presented especially when they are complex. Journey 11 gives a brief introduction to the teaching of complex and fuzzy concepts.
The focus of Journey 12 is on the learner centred ideology. It is in stark contrast to the social efficiency ideology. The child is at the centre of, and has a profound influence on the curriculum process. Like the social reconstruction ideology it is associated with the philosophy of John Dewey. In this ideology the student is a self-activated maker of meaning. Learning moves from the concrete to the abstract. Learning centred educators know a lot about their students. It is argued that engineering educators should have at least a knowledge of their students learning styles. The journey draws attention to convergent and divergent thinking because there is strong argument that engineering students are often taught in ways that are antipathetic to creative thinking. Following discussion of Kolb’s theory of experiential learning and the Felder-Solomon Index of Learning Styles, the journey concludes with a brief commentary on the relation between temperament and learning styles. It is concluded that studies of learning styles and the temperaments of students can provide educators with insights into student learning and instruction.
Those who follow the learning centred ideology do not like psychometric testing or formal examinations. Yet most of us have beliefs about intelligence and its role in learning. Journeys 13, 14, and 15 deal with issues surrounding the concept of intelligence. Journey 13 begins with a brief discussion of the impact that intelligence testing has had on school systems. It is agreed that tests of general mental ability are found to be relatively good predictors of job performance. But multiple methods of assessment are to be preferred to a unitary instrument. Journey 14 begins with a description of the nature-nurture controversy and concludes that we should think about “Nature and Nurture” not “Nature versus Nurture”.
Just as engineering educators should have a view about intelligence so they should have a view about competence. Two views of competence are presented. They have profound consequences for the design of the curriculum and instruction. The role of communication is highlighted, but doubt is cast on the methods used to teach communication as a means of achieving the goals that are required. The view is expressed that the curriculum should be perceived in terms of intellectual and personal development that continues throughout life. That places considerable responsibility on industry for the development of their personnel which most organizations do not seem to accept.
Two alternative theories of intelligence are presented in Journey 15. The first is Howard Gardener’s theory of multiple intelligences, and the second, Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of intelligence. Attention is given to implicit theories of intelligence. Sternberg is also important for engineering education because of his concept of “practical intelligence.” The journey ends with a discussion of emotional intelligence. These journeys show that not only teaching but policy making in respect of the curriculum, benefit if we have a wide ranging understanding of student behavior.
The final journey is a commentary on the social reconstruction ideology. It considers that society is doomed because its institutions are incapable of solving the social problems with which it is faced. Therefore, education has to concern it with the reconstruction of society. Like the learning centred ideology it is based on a social constructivist view of knowledge. The principle methods of teaching are “discussion” and “experience” group methods. In education Karl Smith has encouraged “constructive controversy”. Other methods are “debates” and “mock trials”. The journey ends with a case study. It is concluded that since learning is shared activity the least an instructor can do to foster relationships is to share his/her scholarly activity with his/her students.
John Heywood
October 2017
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Professor Arnold Pears of Uppsala University for inviting me to participate in this project which I have enjoyed immensely.
A big thank you to Dr Mani Mina of Iowa State University for organising this lecture programme and for being my critical friend.
He and I would like to thank Farah Nordin for the large amount of time she gave to the project to tape, and edit the video and audio files. We would also like to thank Mr Kevin Wikham of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for helping with the web development and WordPress set.
We would like to thank Professor David Ringholz, Professor Steve Herrnstad, Matthew Krise, Peter Evens and the faculty, graduate and undergraduate students of the Department of Industrial Design for their continuing interest and enthusiastic support for the project.
More especially we would like to thank the following for leading and contributing to the seminar discussions – Neelam Prabhu-Gaukar, Sara jones, Leif Buaer, Mohammed Al-Mokhainin, and Professors John Basard and Lofthi Ben-Otheman.
John Heywood
October 2017
JOURNEY 1
Accountable to Whom? Learning from Beginning Schoolteachers 1