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The Missing Basics:What Engineers Don’t Learn & Why They Need to Learn It
David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801 [email protected]
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Do Engineers Learn the Right Stuff?
• Engineering education filled with “the basics:” math, science, & engin science.
• Many reform lists the same:– Need more “design.”– Need more “people skills.”– Need better “communications.”
• Want to do 3 things:• Argue that important stuff missing.• Identify it clearly & rigorously.• Understand why the missing stuff is
so important right now.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Begin with the End in Mind
• Reflection on 20-years experience with Senior Design.
• General Engineering at UIUC established in 1921 following curriculum study.
• Grinter report of 1955 led to more math and engineering science at expense of design.
• UCLA conference 1962 & Ford Foundation grant 1966.
• Money ran out 1971.• Industrially sponsored ever after.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Stephen R. Covey (b. 1932 )
Ready, Set, Go
• These are seniors.• Should be engineers on the
threshold.• 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?
© David E. Goldberg 2010
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.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Socrates (470-399 BCE)
Failure 2: Inability to Label
• Don’t know names of common systems, assemblies, and components of technology.
• Difficulty labeling new artifact concepts or models.
• Linguistically naïve.• Mainly comfortable with familiar
categories and objects.• Historical terms: Aristotle 101.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
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 E. Goldberg 2010
David Hume (1711-1776)
Failure 4: Inability to Decompose
• Don’t know how to decompose big problem into little problems.
• Look 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?
© David E. Goldberg 2010
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?
© David E. Goldberg 2010
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.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
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.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Paul Newman (1925-2008)
The Missing Basics vs. the Basics
• Call these lacunae the missing basics (MBs) vs. “the basics” = math, sci, & eng sci.
• Invoke great figures of intellectual history to underline their importance.
• Enlarge the space of “rigor” by adding conceptual rigor (philosophy) to math/science rigor.
• MBs unlock the three joys: joy of engineering, joy of community (working with others) & joy of learning.• Engineering involves MBs as much as the basics.• MBs help you with people.• MBs help you learn new stuff on your own and from others.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Why So Important Now?
• The old paradigm was OK for WW2 & Cold War.
• Then: Engineers did technically specialized work in domestic hierarchical organizations enhancing existing categories of product or service.
• Now a creative era, a flat world. • Need category creators, not just
category enhancers.• Now: Engineers do integrative work
spanning specialties in global flat organizations making that which has never existed.
• MBs and basics important like never before.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
Bottom Line
• Have identified 7 “missing basics” of engin ed.• MBs unlock the three joys: joy of engineering, joy
of community, joy of learning.• MBs expand notion of rigor beyond math &
science to conceptual rigor usually in philosophy.• MBs help prepare you to be a linchpin in a
creative era.• Will still take classes with plenty of math &
science.• This class will help you in thinking more
deeply about your math & science.• Will also help you in engineering
effectiveness with customers and co-workers in a changing world.
© David E. Goldberg 2010
The Missing Basics:What Engineers Don’t Learn & Why They Need to Learn It
David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801 [email protected]
© David E. Goldberg 2010