the loss of the space shuttle columbia: portaging leadership lessons with a critical thinking model...
Post on 25-Dec-2015
215 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
The Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia: Portaging Leadership Lessons with a Critical Thinking Model
Rob Niewoehner, CAPT, USN, PhDCraig Steidle, RADM, USN (ret)Eric Johnson, ENS, USN
U.S. Naval Academy
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Background: My Interest in Critical Thinking… Dismay Training Writing Guide published in
2007 w/ assistance from CDIO friends at CU, EPM, MIT and S.Africa
CAIB paper in 2008
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
The paper
Original paper can be found http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/eng
ineering-reasoning.cfm http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/20
08/Highlights.cfm#Awards
Engineering Management Journal, March 2009 (adapted)
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Context
Humanities Elective- “Technical Leadership” taught to 20 senior engineering students.
Lead instructor was a retired admiral with experience as very large program manager, and Associate Administrator for NASA.
Case study method with 3 weeks devoted to Columbia accident
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
“Portage”
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
The case study challenge… Portable Lessons
“If foam ever falls from my spacecraft, I should…”
or “Intellectual courage and humility
are indispensable for high team performance.”
or “Teams must constantly monitor the
validity of their assumptions.”
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
“engineering instructors may… adopt a sink or swim mentality, teaching at a high level and forcing the students to either adapt or drop out, but a more promising approach is to include explicit mentoring in the ways of thinking being promoted.”
Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent, The Intellectual Development of Science and Engineering Students, Part 1. Models and Challenges, Journal of Engineering Education, 93(4), pg 269-277. (2004)
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
The Question(s) at Hand…
General- How can we promote “ways of thinking”
among our students such that they ask the rich questions we would typically expect of experts?
Specific- Does Richard Paul’s Critical Thinking model
promote the “ways of thinking” we seek? Does its vocabulary provide the portability we
seek from complex case studies? (The “portage problem”)
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
What is your conception of Critical Thinking?
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Critical Thinking- a definition
“Critical Thinking is a deliberate meta-cognitive (thinking about thinking) and cognitive (thinking) act whereby a person reflects on the quality of the reasoning process simultaneously while reasoning to a conclusion. The thinker has two equally important goals: coming to a solution and improving the way she or he reasons.”
Moore, David T. Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis, Joint Military Intelligence College, Occasional Paper 14, May 2006, pg. 2 [italics in original].
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Critical Thinking is… thinking about our thinking with the
goal of improving our thinking a system-opening system a self-directed process by which we
take deliberate steps to think well health monitoring for our thinking
“Critical Thinking Assesses Itself”
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Paul’s Critical Thinking Model (ER, pg 5)
Intellectual Humility
FairmindednessIntellectual Autonomy
Confidence in ReasonIntellectual Integrity
Intellectual EmpathyIntellectual Courage
Intellectual Perseverance Intellectual Curiosity
Intellectual Traits/Virtues
Purpose Question at Hand Point of View AssumptionsData/Information ConceptsInferences/Conclusions Implications
Elements of Thought
Intellectual Standards
Clarity Precision Accuracy SignificanceRelevance Fairness Logical DepthBreadth Concision Suitability
Beauty
to develop
must be applied to
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Intellectual StandardsClarity Understandable, meaning can be graspedAccuracy Free from errors or distortions, truePrecision Exact to the necessary level of detailRelevance Relating to the matter at hand
Significance Focusing on the important, not trivial
DepthConsidering complexities and interrelationships
Breadth Involving multiple viewpointsLogical Validity
The parts make sense together
Fairness Not self-serving (or egocentric)Suitability Appropriate for the audienceConcision High intellectual density (substance/length)Beauty Aesthetic appeal
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Whenever we think…
We think for a purpose
From within a point of
view
employing assumptions.
leading to implications and conse -quences.
We use data,
facts, and experiences
to make inferences and
judgments
based on concepts and
theories
attempting to answer a question.
Elementsof Thought(ER, pg 9)
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Intellectual Traits/Virtues Intellectual Autonomy Intellectual Humility Intellectual Integrity Intellectual Courage Intellectual Curiosity Intellectual Perseverance Fairmindedness Confidence in Reason Intellectual Empathy
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Prepping the class for the case study. Several of the students had seen the
model in my classes. Many however were not Aerospace majors and had no prior contact with Paul’s model.
Two workshop class sessions of 75 minutes were used to introduce the model.
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Intellectual Traits/Virtues
Recall two personal stories A story in which the obvious presence of
one trait contributed positively to the performance of a team.
A story in which an obvious defect in one trait detracted from the performance of a team.
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Case Study: Columbia Accident Investigation Report (CAIB)
The Accident clip, clip2 The CAIB report. This is a
masterpiece on organizational behavior of high technology teams.It is also a sad and occasionally maddening story.
Chapter 7 Extract, foam1, foam2 paper
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Exercise - The Elements of Thought “MMT”= Mission Management Team1. What was the MMT’s evident purpose?
2. What question(s) did the MMT seek to answer?
3. What point of view(s) dominated the discussion?
4. What assumptions did the MMT make?
5. What significant information did the MMT (mis)handle?
6. What concepts are important?
7. What was the inferences are suggested?
8. What were the implications of this conclusion?
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Findings:
Paul’s model provides a robust vocabulary for evaluating engineering team intellectual performance, characterizing both failures and successes.
Students quickly gain facility with the model, and apply it with little overhead time.
June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary
Resources
Original paper can be found http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/
engineering-reasoning.cfm http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/
2008/Highlights.cfm#Awards Engineering Management Journal, March
2009 (adapted) Engineering Reasoning guide available
(~$2.5 USD) niewoehn@usna.edu
top related