Cultivating Thinking Skills in the Global Engineering Student

Yu-Ling Cheng & Lisa RomkeyUniversity of Toronto

Ice-Breaker

In groups, share the following: – Who are you and where are you from? – Why are you at this conference? – Why are you at this workshop? Each participant will be introduced to the group by

another participant.

Why Thinking?Why Now?

Information/Knowledge Explosion

• By 2010, amount of digital content will double every 11 hours (Steven Mills, Senior VP of IBM Software)

• Peer-reviewed publications growing exponentially

• Emerging areas of the last 10 years– Biomedical engineering, nanoengineering, energy– What are the fundamentals?– Challenge to define required content

• What will emerge in the next 50 years?

5

Knowledge Explosion:# of Medline Publications Per Year

Information vs KnowledgeHow and What Are Students Learning

• Google first– And last?– How much thought after googling?

• Abundance of information– Is “free” information valued? – Do students have a good mental model to help

organize new information? – Does information become knowledge?

Global Challenges

• Calculus• Thermodynamics• Circuits• Statics• Fluid mechanics• Materials• Chemistry• Physics• Biology

• Hunger• Poverty• War• Natural disasters• Environment• Climate Change

?

Workshop Outline

1) Recognize that we predominately focus on content (which is expanding rapidly) and not explicitly on the thinking skills required to internalize the content

2) Understand the role of thinking skills, competencies and traits in the development of the engineer

3) Explore how faculty can identify good thinking, and establish a learning environment that focuses on thinking

Today’s Project

A take home “poster” that represents your own “model of thinking” for a good engineer– Your final product will be a result of discussions

with peers, existing models and reflection – Creating a poster facilitates sharing and creativity

Individual Exercise #1

Define a “Good Engineer” Write your definition in paragraph or point form.

Individual Exercise #2

What are the required thinking skills, competencies andtraits (SCT) of an engineer? Write each one down on aseparate sticky note, and consider:• Which SCT’s are needed for engineers to address

global challenges?• Which SCT’s are needed for engineers to stay relevant

and up-to-date in an environment of rapid knowledge growth?

Think-Pair-Share

Share results from your individual exercise with a partner and consider the following: – Work together to clarify and re-articulate thinking

skills that are fuzzy. Question for details. What does X mean? Think of examples from your own class. Make more sticky notes as needed.

– Is your definition of a “good engineer” in sync with your skills, traits and competencies?

– “Borrow” ideas from your partner as you see fit.

Group Report Back (SCT’s)

Small Group Discussion

Let’s talk about your students: • What aspects of thinking skills do you see in

your students? • What do you see missing from your students’

work? • What fraction of your students have good

thinking skills? • What changes do you see from first year to

graduation?

Group Report Back

Background on Thinking Models

What is Critical Thinking?

“Critical Thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”

- Richard Paul, Foundation for Critical Thinking

Results of Critical Thinking A Well-Cultivated Critical Thinker: • Raises important questions, formulating them clearly

and precisely • Gathers and assesses relevant information and

interprets it carefully • Comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions• Thinks with an open mind, recognizing their

assumptions and the consequences of their thinking • Communicates effectively with others about their

thinking» Paul and Elder, the Foundation for Critical Thinking

Paul & Elder FrameworkElementsPurposeQuestion

InformationInterpretation

ConceptsAssumptions

ConsequencesPoint of View

StandardsClarity

Accuracy RelevanceLogicalness

BreadthPrecisionFairnessDepth

TraitsHumility

Autonomy Integrity Courage

PerseveranceConfidence

Empathy Fair-mindedness

Components of any document or piece

of work; technical or persuasive

Applied to ensure quality of thinking

Traits that determine the

integrity and insight of one’s thinking

What is Critical Thinking?

“A quality of thinking that is characterized by self-regulated deliberations on a challenge situation or task that involve exploring and generating alternatives, and making evaluative judgements. These judgements are based on criteria, which provide justifications for the conclusion, and are applied to meaning, relational, empirical or value claims”

- Van Gyn and Ford, 2006

Van Gyn & Ford Framework

Intellectual Habits: Qualities of thinking

that characterize careful responses to challenge situations or tasks that involve

critical thinking

Intellectual Deliberations:

Tools that influence the formal ways of thinking, learning

and knowing

Reflexive Disposition:

The self-regulated capability to plan

ahead for CT, monitor its quality and reflect on its

strengths and limitations

Intellectual Habits

Qualities of thinking that characterize careful responses to challenge situations or tasks that involve critical thinking

•Intellectual Curiosity •Respect for Truth and Reason•Fair and Open-Mindedness•Tolerance for Ambiguity •Intellectual Courage •Intellectual Work Ethic•Willingness to Collaborate

Intellectual Deliberations

Tools that influence the formal ways of thinking, learning and knowing

•Identifying the Challenge•Gathering, Understanding and Interpreting Background Info.•Applying Relevant Thinking Strategies•Making Judgments Based on Relevant Criteria•Constructing Justification for Judgements

Reflexive Disposition

The self-regulated capability to plan ahead for CT, monitor its quality and reflect on its strengths and limitations

Self-Regulated Capability to: •Plan Ahead for Critical Thinking•Monitor its Quality •Reflect on the Strengths and Limits of Intellectual Deliberations and Habits in Making a Judgement

Systems Thinking • A system is more than the sum of its parts• Properties emerge from the “whole” and its context,

and these need to be identified• Identifying cultural, political, economic, social and

environmental contextual characteristics• Recognition of the impact of how the individual

perspective impacts the understanding of the system• Understand and accept complexity • The concept of framing

Brian Wilson, Peter Checkland, Peter Senge

Cultural Thinking

• The way we organize knowledge depends on our cultural background and experiences

• This knowledge also impacts how we view others and their knowledge

• There is a need to recognize our own “cultural thinking” and also understand the cultural norms of others

Shinobu Kitayama, Richard Nisbett, Denise Park

Creative Thinking

• Making something new – Methods of idea and concept generation – Identifying new connections between existing

ideas or concepts– Assumption-breaking – Lateral thinking (moving from a known to an

unknown idea) – Comfort with ambiguity – Comfort with failure and mistakes

Edward de Bono

Higher Level Thinking • Are you asking the right questions? Working

on the right problems? – How do you decide what to work on?

• Are your tools appropriate and effective? Do you have the necessary skills/team?

• What are the limitations of your knowledge? • What are the societal implications of

technology? (Are you working on the right problems?)

Exercise

Using your initial ideas, the sharing with yourpartner and the concepts we just discussed:• Organize your skills, competencies and traits

into groups on your poster that make sense to you

• How do the SCT’s relate to each other? • Consider your own course or discipline as you

start to build your framework

Frameworks…

• Skill 1• Skill 2• Skill 3• Skill 4• Skill 5• Etc…

Can look like a list…or a visual map

Revisit “Good Engineer”

Based on your new ideas about thinking, does your definition of a good engineer still fit?

Does it need to be updated? Write down your best version on your poster.

Sharing Perspectives

• Hang up your poster• Look at the thinking models of other

participants, provide comments via sticky-notes

• “Shop around” for new ideas and modify your framework as you see fit

• What commonalities do you see? What differences do you observe?

Putting Your Framework to Use

• Take one element from your framework• Describe the qualities and process that would

prove a student was demonstrating the skill successfully

• “Synthesis of Information” – Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of different

view points – Selection of information/sources relevant to the question– Credible interpretation of information– Accurate interpretation of information– Relevant connections among ideas

Creating a Learning Objective• Develop a learning objective or two that are inclusive

of good thinking for your course • Learning Objective: an explicit statement of the

intended result of student learning which includes how students will demonstrate their learning

• The learning objective should reflect a concept about which you want students to think carefully and critically.

• Example: “Review conflicting viewpoints on nuclear energy”

Creating a Learning Objective

Improving the Objective: Identify the concepts from your poster that you

would like to incorporate, and re-write the objective “Review conflicting viewpoints of the growth of

nuclear energy, analyzing each respective groups’ data and information for credibility, and construct a comparative analysis of the technical, economic, political and social aspects of nuclear energy.”

Add the objective to your poster

Take Home Project

Develop a problem or assignment for your course that addresses your written learning objective about thinking skills

Faculty Challenges

Paul, Elder and Bartell (1997) • 140 faculty members surveyed at colleges and

universities in California • 89% said that CT was a primary objective in

their course• 19% could give a coherent definition • 9% provided evidence that they specifically

taught for CT

Faculty Challenges

Faculty Perception of Critical Thinking (Scott, 1998)– Differences demonstrated between what educators and

practitioners found to be important– Faculty identified some gaps in the critical thinking skills of

students – specifically weighing alternatives and questioning assumptions

– Faculty understood the need for specific instructional strategies, but lacked the knowledge and confidence to employ them

– Content/knowledge was ranked higher than problem solving skills, reasoning and encouraging reflection

Summing Up

What support do faculty need to emphasize good thinking?