labels goldberg

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Labeling: The Elusive Missing Basic David E. Goldberg Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois 61801 USA [email protected]

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Page 1: Labels goldberg

Labeling:The Elusive Missing Basic

David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, Illinois 61801 [email protected]

Page 2: Labels goldberg

Motivation

• When missing basics listed, people look at list and ask, “What do you mean by labeling?”

• Very important to learn names of components, subsystems & systems of technology.

• Important to assign labels to patterns in data or new systems.• Use and assignment of terms such a commonplace don’t even

notice.• Sometimes think that equations and numbers are the only

tech objects worth knowing.• Sensitivity to names and labels critical to becoming great

engineer.

Page 3: Labels goldberg

Roadmap

• Socrates, Aristotle & all that.• Connection to Back of the Napkin.• Importance of learning tech names & how.• Senior design example.• Assigning labels: How & why.• Senior design revisited.• Made to Stick.• The construction of engineering reality.

Page 4: Labels goldberg

Socrates and Dialectic

• Socrates was a pain in the neck.• Walked around Athens asking

everyone impossible questions.• Then proved their answers were

wrong, but rarely gave an answer himself.

• Nonetheless, Socrates’s method was useful.

• Dialectic (continuing sequence of questions & answers) trying to probe what & how things really are (or might be). Socrates (470-399 BCE)

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Connection to the Napkin

• Six ways of seeing:– Objects: who & what?– Quantity: how many &

how much?– Position in space:

where?– Position in time: when?– Influence & cause:

how?– Purpose or meaning:

why?

Page 6: Labels goldberg

Aristotle and Labeling/Categorization

• Called The Philosopher.• Amazing range & scope.• Created basic categories of

college curriculum.• Founded a school the Lyceum.• We have 1/3 his output (2000

pages in 30 books).• Categories (10): substance,

quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion. Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Page 7: Labels goldberg

Names & Labels

• Names as conventional terms used to identify something.

• Labels as tentative naming of phenomenon as part of criticial/creative process.

• Time + social acceptance: label name.• Consider

– Extant tech names.– Labeling of new/unknown phenomena.

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Connection to the Napkin

• How does Dan Roam start?

• With a circle and a label or name.

• Back of the Napkin is as much about names/labels as about diagrams/pictures.

• Words and pictures are interrelated.

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Where to Find Names of Tech Objects

• Books: New Way Things Work

• Encyclopedia: www.accessscience.com

• Web: www.howstuffworks.com

• Catalogs: www.grainger.com www.alliedelec.com

• Trade press: www.entertainmentengineering.com www.foodengineeringmag.com

• Thomas directory: www.thomasnet.com

Page 10: Labels goldberg

Example from Senior Design

• Tortilla line.• Was using too much “dusting flour.”• Problem: expensive (flour price had risen),

maintenance, quality of product.• Students go to plant.• Don’t know the names of things, but need them

to explain process.

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Mixer11

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Flour Dusters12

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Die Cutter13

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Labeling

• Want terms that are – Descriptive– Memorable

• Why is this important?– Focuses attention on thing named.– Saves time in reference to the phenomenon.– Starting point for further modeling.– Permits easy social spread of the concept.

• Examples from news, politics & business. • List iFoundry terms and consider whether they are descriptive

and memorable.

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Critical Examination of iFoundry Terms

• “Category creator” vs. “category enhancer”• “Missing basics”• “Cold war engineer”• “Missed revolutions”• Are they descriptive?• Do they have rhetorical intent beyond their

function? Approbation, opprobrium, or other values.

Page 16: Labels goldberg

Abbreviations, Acronyms & Initialisms

• 3 terms:– Abbreviation: shortening of word or phrase.– Acronym: abbreviation that can be pronounced as a word.– Initialism: abbreviation formed from initial letters of words.

• Engineering uses abbreviations as shorthand for longer term.• Abbreviation: iFoundry (Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering

Education).• Acronym examples: SNAFU (situation normal all fouled up), BASIC (Beginner's

All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).• Initialism examples: Background, purpose, roadmap: BPR (background,

purpose, roadmap), CSL (Coordinated Science Laboratory). • Rules of usage: lower case for term unless it is a proper name.• Use of an abbreviation can signal an important label or local term of art.• Example: The missing basics (MBs) are important to an engineer’s education.

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Return to Tortilla Problem

• Labeling as initial step in solution.

• Recall problem was too much dusting flour.

• What names might we assign to this problem?

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A Model of Ideas that Stick

• Sticky: understandable, memorable & effective in changing thought or action.

• Made to Stick model:– Simple– Unexpected– Concrete– Credible– Emotional– Stories

• Forms acronym SUCCES.

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The Construction of Engineering Reality• Engineers think of physics and material

world.• All engineered objects are social.• Searle’s, The Construction of Social

Reality (Free Press, 1995), explains. • Helps us understand social and

institutional facts, separate physics from the social.

• Engineered objects are always observer relative.

• Some engineered objects “institutional” in that we must believe they exist for them to exist: E-bay.

John R. Searle (b. 1932)

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Bottom Line

• Names and labeling are so commonplace in language, they’re hidden (in plain sight).

• Engineering school spends little time on the names of things. You should do otherwise.

• Labeling is a critical step in further inquiry.• Label may be enough of a model, or more

modeling may be necessary.• Knowing names and labeling are first steps to

better understanding and better engineering.

Page 21: Labels goldberg

Labeling:The Elusive Missing Basic

David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, Illinois 61801 [email protected]