The problem we address in this project is this: How can critical thinking skills and engineering judgment be developed in engineering undergraduates before they reach their senior year? We adopt the hypothesis that mental growth constitutes a progression through a hierarchy of cognition, that the critical thinking required of engineers lies at an upper level in the hierarchy, and that, to reach high levels, each individual must master cognitive skills at lower levels. We believe that senior engineering students do not attain the necessary thinking skills because their low-level cognitive skills have been incompletely developed or largely neglected. We use a hierarchical model of mental growth as the basis for strengthening low-level cognitive skills in sophomores and juniors. With those skills in place, we then apply an ensemble of teaching and learning devices that promote rapid and effective development of critical thinking and engineering judgment.
This project incorporates these innovative features: it tests a new, integrative, hierarchical model for learning; it evaluates a substantial number of teaching and learning devices that are designed to propel students to higher levels of cognition; it results in new assessment instruments that help instructors monitor student growth. Our approach is being tested on chemical engineering undergraduates, but the results are broadly applicable to all engineering disciplines. Educational materials that are being developed as part of this research include teaching and learning devices (for example, hardware exercises, equipment explorations, web-based exercises, glossaries, equation interrogation, graph/equation equivalencies, pattern identification), guidance on how to best implement the hierarchical model, and new tools to assess the effectiveness of these activities. Broader outcomes from the work include professional presentations and publications and a project website for learning.
The project involves six Professors of Chemical Engineering at Clemson, a Professor of Education at Clemson, and a Professor of Education at Simon Fraser University (Canada). Off-site testing of our methods is being performed by chemical engineering professors at Rowan University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University, University of Virginia, and University of Michigan.
