I am rereading this book after having read it the first time many years ago. Here are some of the things that have struck me so far:
(p. 52) "Engineers today, like Galileo three and a half centuries ago, are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgivable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work, but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others."
[collaboration is a must, so the ability to communicate effectively with others it vital for success ]
(p 62) "No one wants to learn by mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art. Contrary to their popular characterization as intellectual conservatives, engineers are really among the avant-garde."
[we might not be good at eye contact, but we are avant-garde anyway :-)]
(p. 90) "But explaining what went wrong with the Hyatt Regency walkways and pointing out changes that would have worked is a lot easier than catching a mistake in a design to be realized. After the fact there is a well-defined "puzzle" to solve to show how clever one is. Before the fact one must not only define the design "puzzle" but also define one's "solution" by checking all possible ways in which it can fail."
[checking all possible way in which a design can fail is very important, but difficult because humans have a natural tendency to confirm their point of view rather than be open to other perspectives. This again is where collaboration is important.]
"No one wants to learn by mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art."
ReplyDeleteI love this quote and I can't wait to share it with my students. It is so important for them to understand that in many ways, failure helps them learn more effectively than success.
So what do these quotes mean to me as a teacher?
ReplyDelete(p. 52) "Engineers today, like Galileo three and a half centuries ago, are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgivable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work, but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others."
I guess I come up with the same answer as an engineer would. Collaboration is important and promoting an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. I work at supporting this atmosphere constantly in the classroom. What's it like if you work as an engineer? Is collaboration easy? Hard? Can you think of an example?
(p 62) "No one wants to learn by mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art. Contrary to their popular characterization as intellectual conservatives, engineers are really among the avant-garde."
This quote really struck me, not so much as a teacher, but as a lay reader. Wow! I would never have thought of them as avant-garde. To me, this speaks of risk taking, another behavior I need to support in the classroom. I need to give students the room to try ideas, even if they seem far out or doomed to failure to me. Sometimes that's hard to do, given time constraints. It's hard to hold back and not say anything when there's 10 minutes until they start calling buses!
(p. 90) "But explaining what went wrong with the Hyatt Regency walkways and pointing out changes that would have worked is a lot easier than catching a mistake in a design to be realized. After the fact there is a well-defined "puzzle" to solve to show how clever one is. Before the fact one must not only define the design "puzzle" but also define one's "solution" by checking all possible ways in which it can fail."
Yes, I think this is again a group process, and for young students, maybe even a teacher-led process initially until they become familiar with this kind of thinking.
Love hearing from an engineer. As a teacher we work hard on building collaboration skills, so I was glad to see that you thought that was important. Also we try to teach them to check their own work for mistakes. For the younger students it is difficult for them to provide constructive help to others. So we spend a lot of time modeling these skills.
ReplyDeleteI, too, highlighted the Galileo quote while reading that chapter. In my Engineering class (grade 9-12 elective), I have students build small projects (straw and string bridges, mousetrap cars, floating windturbine bases). Each group has room to try their own ideas and lots of latitude in the first round. When we test their device, everyone watches, and then the group explains their design decisions and the group critiques the strengths and weaknesses of each design. We then follow that up by stepping up the design criteria (longer span on bridge, rat trap car, larger windturbine) and students repeat the process. I have found that teaching engineering this way is effective in getting students to collaborate, and critique their work. Upping the ante for a second round makes the first round have more value, just like prototyping supports design work.
ReplyDeleteI have not been that successful getting students to collaborate as meaningfully in other classes.
I find that my students seem to work better collaboratively in problem-based situations as well. When they work collaboratively on a reading research project, for instance, the work load doesn't seem as evenly distributed and they have trouble critiquing their work.
DeleteDue to time constraints, we had to shorten our wind turbine project this year. What happened is we had each group present the design and initial test data from their turbines. The class then voted on the two best designs. the class was split in half and then we finished the tests with just the two units. The students had some great discussions and were very clear about why they chose the turbines that they did. It turned small group collaboration into large team collaboration. It was alot of fun.
ReplyDelete