I found this paper to be particularly interesting. I enjoyed its concreteness. Instead of focusing on things that might be wrong, or making observations, or talking about philosophy, or defining words this paper seemed to suggest a way for engineering education to move forward.
The organization was very clear as well. They identified how to improve engineering education, who needs to do it, and what they need to do.
The how seemed to be mostly by working in collaboration with one another. An actual model is presented that involves using educational research to fuel practice. Like medicine, adopting practices that are shown to actually work in a statistically significant way is a good thing, and I think that is precisely what is being suggested.
The who is arguably obvious - engineering faculty and administrators are definitely at the front lines. In focusing on these people the authors talk about strengthening their professional development, encouraging diverse interactions, as well as creating a generally supportive environment. The authors also mention how many new faculty endure a "birth by fire" kind of initiation when they first start in that while they are well equipped to do research many are relatively weak with regard to instruction. This resonated with my experiences as a student and my encounters with new faculty members.
Finally, they talk about the "what." Curriculum, instruction, and assessment. I like how they chose three things instead of focusing on just one. There are numerous instances where, for example, authors choose to beat say the assessment horse to death and then some. This paper seemed to instead present a balanced view without overemphasizing assessment.
All in all I would say this is one of the more useful papers that I have read this semester.
Showing posts with label Jeff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeff. Show all posts
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Week 9 Readings
I think the following statement more or less summarizes the first paper...
"Social scientists tend to see the process of knowledge acquisition as inherently difficult. In contrast, AI people clearly believe that it can be done much more efficiently and look forward to the day when automation will accomplish this goal."
The author is trying to draw a contrasting point here, but I think is failing. Knowledge acquisition, ie learning, can be done much more efficiently. We just have to be able to get systems (not necessarily computers) to "learn." I think AI researchers would agree this is very difficult and it is something that people have been unsuccessfully trying to accomplish for decades.
Just because AI "people" believe that it can be done more efficiently and in an automated fashion doesn't mean they think it is easy by any stretch of the imagination.
The main focus of this paper seems to be "AI researcher's definition of knowledge and their approach to knowledge acquisition doesn't match mine! (and is probably wrong)." Big surprise. The expert systems of the 80's, which this article is based on, are largely considered failures and modern AI researchers are engaged in relatively if not drastically different approaches today. The date on the paper is 2001, but google seems to imply that the actual text is from 1993. That would make more sense to me.
The second paper made me want to get out my buzzword bingo set. Nevertheless it was relatively interesting. I think the design notebook idea is fairly ingrained with engineering, at least the program I experienced, at this point.
The final paper was quite interesting. I particularly enjoyed the section where the author classified statements made in a paper into 5 distinct types. I found this intriguing.
Nevertheless, I was a little squeamish about the belief that the laboratory was merely a system for literary inscription. I think that is an unfair oversimplification. Unquestionably publishing is a large part of research. However, there is a lot more going on and not all of it will be directly published.
The author seems to state almost with pride "By remaining steadfastly obstinate, our anthropological observer resisted the temptation to be convinced by the facts." I'm still not sure what I think about that.
"Social scientists tend to see the process of knowledge acquisition as inherently difficult. In contrast, AI people clearly believe that it can be done much more efficiently and look forward to the day when automation will accomplish this goal."
The author is trying to draw a contrasting point here, but I think is failing. Knowledge acquisition, ie learning, can be done much more efficiently. We just have to be able to get systems (not necessarily computers) to "learn." I think AI researchers would agree this is very difficult and it is something that people have been unsuccessfully trying to accomplish for decades.
Just because AI "people" believe that it can be done more efficiently and in an automated fashion doesn't mean they think it is easy by any stretch of the imagination.
The main focus of this paper seems to be "AI researcher's definition of knowledge and their approach to knowledge acquisition doesn't match mine! (and is probably wrong)." Big surprise. The expert systems of the 80's, which this article is based on, are largely considered failures and modern AI researchers are engaged in relatively if not drastically different approaches today. The date on the paper is 2001, but google seems to imply that the actual text is from 1993. That would make more sense to me.
The second paper made me want to get out my buzzword bingo set. Nevertheless it was relatively interesting. I think the design notebook idea is fairly ingrained with engineering, at least the program I experienced, at this point.
The final paper was quite interesting. I particularly enjoyed the section where the author classified statements made in a paper into 5 distinct types. I found this intriguing.
Nevertheless, I was a little squeamish about the belief that the laboratory was merely a system for literary inscription. I think that is an unfair oversimplification. Unquestionably publishing is a large part of research. However, there is a lot more going on and not all of it will be directly published.
The author seems to state almost with pride "By remaining steadfastly obstinate, our anthropological observer resisted the temptation to be convinced by the facts." I'm still not sure what I think about that.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Purdue's Lack of a School of Music
After our ending discussion where it was mentioned that Purdue has no school of music due to a stipulation by John Purdue, I thought to myself "that's probably a myth." So I walked over to the Elliott Hall of Music to talk to a friend of mine, Professor Jay Gephart, Director of Bands at Purdue.
He was busy, but was able to quickly answer my question. "Why doesn't Purdue have a school of music?" I asked. He responded "I don't know exactly, but it has to due with the fact that it is a land grant institution and IU already had a school of music at the time of its founding." I replied, "Did John Purdue establish any requirements when he gave his initial donation prohibiting a school of music?" Jay's response: "no, it was nothing like that."
So there's an argument from authority. But that's hardly good enough, so I went digging in an old book that I bought a while back. It's out of print (though apparently the Purdue library system has it online). The book is called "Century and Beyond: The History of Purdue University". It's a good book and I encourage anyone planning to stick around here for a while to read it.
On page 29 you can find the letter that John Purdue wrote to the Governor of Indiana detailing the conditions associated with his donation. I've reproduced it below:
To His Excellency Conrad Baker, Governor of Indiana:
Sir --
As the General Assembly, at its present session, will doubtless be called upon to consider the questions relating to the establishment and location of the Agricultural College, contemplated by the act of Congress of July 2, 1862, I desire to avail myself of the opportunity to render a testimonial to the county in which I have spent thirty years of the ripeness of my life, and also to manifest my interest in the cause of collegiate education, by offering (as I now do) through your Excellency to the State of Indiana, to donate the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the use of such college, provided the General Assembly will, by law, secure me in the following conditions:
First. Locate the said college at such point in Tippecanoe County as may be decided upon by a majority of the present Board of Trustees of the Indiana Agricultural College, to whom I be added as a member.
Second. Name the Institution by an irrepealable law "Purdue University".
Third. Provide that I be a member of the Board of Trustees having control of said institution, and should I cease to be such, I be retained as a advisory member thereof, and have visitorial power over the University during my lifetime.
Upon these conditions I offer this donation, which I agree to pay in yearly installments of $15,000 until the full sum of $150,000 is paid; and I am prepared to render my obligations accordingly as may be required.
I will thank you to present my offer to the Houses of the General Assembly for their consideration.
Very respectfully yours,
John Purdue
April 15, 1869
So to clear up any ambiguities, the fact that Purdue University does not have a school of music really has nothing to do with John Purdue. The exact details are still unclear to me, and I spent a little time digging around trying to find Purdue's actual charter with no success.
My understanding is that because IU predates Purdue (and the Morrill Act) it was a more traditional liberal arts college, representative of post-secondary education at the time. When the Morrill Act was passed the Indiana legislature leveraged it to create an Agriculture/Mechanical (Engineering) college – Purdue – and in the process wanted to avoid duplicating programs that already existed at the other state institution. That is why, for instance, IU has a medical program and Purdue does not. Purdue has a vet med program, and IU does not. IU has a school of music, and Purdue does not (although you can minor in music here). As time progresses we can see some duplication of programs between the two universities, but that is probably to be expected as the enrollment increases. This is simply my understanding, I haven't put forth the effort to find any citations to support my claims.
That said, my main goal with this post is to help prevent the spread of misinformation. I hope that it is clear that Purdue's lack of a school of music has nothing to do with John Purdue.
If someone happens to have more information regarding this particular historical oddity I would be very, very interested in hearing it. Thanks!
He was busy, but was able to quickly answer my question. "Why doesn't Purdue have a school of music?" I asked. He responded "I don't know exactly, but it has to due with the fact that it is a land grant institution and IU already had a school of music at the time of its founding." I replied, "Did John Purdue establish any requirements when he gave his initial donation prohibiting a school of music?" Jay's response: "no, it was nothing like that."
So there's an argument from authority. But that's hardly good enough, so I went digging in an old book that I bought a while back. It's out of print (though apparently the Purdue library system has it online). The book is called "Century and Beyond: The History of Purdue University". It's a good book and I encourage anyone planning to stick around here for a while to read it.
On page 29 you can find the letter that John Purdue wrote to the Governor of Indiana detailing the conditions associated with his donation. I've reproduced it below:
To His Excellency Conrad Baker, Governor of Indiana:
Sir --
As the General Assembly, at its present session, will doubtless be called upon to consider the questions relating to the establishment and location of the Agricultural College, contemplated by the act of Congress of July 2, 1862, I desire to avail myself of the opportunity to render a testimonial to the county in which I have spent thirty years of the ripeness of my life, and also to manifest my interest in the cause of collegiate education, by offering (as I now do) through your Excellency to the State of Indiana, to donate the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the use of such college, provided the General Assembly will, by law, secure me in the following conditions:
First. Locate the said college at such point in Tippecanoe County as may be decided upon by a majority of the present Board of Trustees of the Indiana Agricultural College, to whom I be added as a member.
Second. Name the Institution by an irrepealable law "Purdue University".
Third. Provide that I be a member of the Board of Trustees having control of said institution, and should I cease to be such, I be retained as a advisory member thereof, and have visitorial power over the University during my lifetime.
Upon these conditions I offer this donation, which I agree to pay in yearly installments of $15,000 until the full sum of $150,000 is paid; and I am prepared to render my obligations accordingly as may be required.
I will thank you to present my offer to the Houses of the General Assembly for their consideration.
Very respectfully yours,
John Purdue
April 15, 1869
So to clear up any ambiguities, the fact that Purdue University does not have a school of music really has nothing to do with John Purdue. The exact details are still unclear to me, and I spent a little time digging around trying to find Purdue's actual charter with no success.
My understanding is that because IU predates Purdue (and the Morrill Act) it was a more traditional liberal arts college, representative of post-secondary education at the time. When the Morrill Act was passed the Indiana legislature leveraged it to create an Agriculture/Mechanical (Engineering) college – Purdue – and in the process wanted to avoid duplicating programs that already existed at the other state institution. That is why, for instance, IU has a medical program and Purdue does not. Purdue has a vet med program, and IU does not. IU has a school of music, and Purdue does not (although you can minor in music here). As time progresses we can see some duplication of programs between the two universities, but that is probably to be expected as the enrollment increases. This is simply my understanding, I haven't put forth the effort to find any citations to support my claims.
That said, my main goal with this post is to help prevent the spread of misinformation. I hope that it is clear that Purdue's lack of a school of music has nothing to do with John Purdue.
If someone happens to have more information regarding this particular historical oddity I would be very, very interested in hearing it. Thanks!
Thoughts on "Re-engineering"
I found the paper "The Other Re-engineering of Engineering Education, 1900-1965" to be fairly intriguing. In particular, my experience in the electrical and computer engineering program at Purdue was reasonably laden with practical design exercises and considerations, at least for the undergraduate portion.
At times the paper seemed as though it was arguing that engineers should be engaged in more practical engineering, where practical is defined as going out and actually building something. I think we are long past that point in our history. Engineers no longer build things, they design them. Other people more skilled in construction and (generally) less educated are responsible for taking the schematics that the engineer architected and turning them into reality.
In particular a few quotes intrigued me. I really liked this quote:
" 'This is a book you can read without the use of the calculus.' If you're going to take the calculus out of engineering, you are going to destroy engineering."
I agree with that quote wholeheartedly.
Another quote which was intriguing, but that I disagree with is this:
"The tendency [of research] seemed to be toward such far-out matters as 'a theoretical study of the scattering of electrical waves by perfectly reflecting bodies...'" He
added, "when ... the engineering editor tried to get pictures to illustrate reports on research in progress, he was sometimes told there was nothing to photograph unless he was willing to photograph an equation."
The author seems to be implying that because there were only equations to take a picture of, what was being done must be so "far-out" as to be pure research and totally impractical. We can walk down to the Birck Nanotechnology Center on probably any day of the week, and the people there will be submerged in an ocean of models and equations. A lot of them will be accounting for quantum mechanical effects and other things happening at the atomic and subatomic levels. Particularly when dealing with the subatomic level, you're going to have a really hard time getting any pictures.
Yet, these models are used to guide the creation of new transistors and other solid state devices. There's nothing impractical at all about what is being done here.
Maybe my department is just so far along in this "re-engineering" process that I already reaped its benefits. I think that's probably unlikely, however. The fact of the matter is that we're at a point where a large part of engineering is engineering science, not just because that is what is being taught in colleges but also because that is what is being used in practice. It is for the better that we can model things before we build them.
At times the paper seemed as though it was arguing that engineers should be engaged in more practical engineering, where practical is defined as going out and actually building something. I think we are long past that point in our history. Engineers no longer build things, they design them. Other people more skilled in construction and (generally) less educated are responsible for taking the schematics that the engineer architected and turning them into reality.
In particular a few quotes intrigued me. I really liked this quote:
" 'This is a book you can read without the use of the calculus.' If you're going to take the calculus out of engineering, you are going to destroy engineering."
I agree with that quote wholeheartedly.
Another quote which was intriguing, but that I disagree with is this:
"The tendency [of research] seemed to be toward such far-out matters as 'a theoretical study of the scattering of electrical waves by perfectly reflecting bodies...'" He
added, "when ... the engineering editor tried to get pictures to illustrate reports on research in progress, he was sometimes told there was nothing to photograph unless he was willing to photograph an equation."
The author seems to be implying that because there were only equations to take a picture of, what was being done must be so "far-out" as to be pure research and totally impractical. We can walk down to the Birck Nanotechnology Center on probably any day of the week, and the people there will be submerged in an ocean of models and equations. A lot of them will be accounting for quantum mechanical effects and other things happening at the atomic and subatomic levels. Particularly when dealing with the subatomic level, you're going to have a really hard time getting any pictures.
Yet, these models are used to guide the creation of new transistors and other solid state devices. There's nothing impractical at all about what is being done here.
Maybe my department is just so far along in this "re-engineering" process that I already reaped its benefits. I think that's probably unlikely, however. The fact of the matter is that we're at a point where a large part of engineering is engineering science, not just because that is what is being taught in colleges but also because that is what is being used in practice. It is for the better that we can model things before we build them.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Week 7 Readings
I apparently forgot to post this earlier, but here it is nevertheless...
The Layton article intrigued me. It seemed to focus almost if not entirely on engineering societies and their definitions of an engineer with specific regard to membership. Essentially the "lens" that he was using to view the definition of an engineer was that of professional societies.
It seems that membership requirements for professional engineering societies is orthogonal to whether or not an individual is considered an engineer. In particular, the fact that some try so hard to include managers who no longer practice engineeringFor a particular example, Layton continually discusses the fact that some societies tried to allow managerial counterparts into their society (individuals that presumably used to hold an engineering position).
The three chapters by Noble seemed to dance with the notion that engineers were at their heart businessmen. The lens he used was more industrial.
Gieryn's paper was particularly odd. He seemed to seriously struggle with the definition of science. I was perplexed by his difficulty in defining it, and establishing its boundaries.
Science is simple - it's the practice of the scientific method, which we all learned it in middle school if not grade school. For something to be considered scientific knowledge it has to be falsifiable, among other things.
I think the three papers combined start to unveil the actual boundaries and definition of an engineer. In that regard, a good set of readings.
The Layton article intrigued me. It seemed to focus almost if not entirely on engineering societies and their definitions of an engineer with specific regard to membership. Essentially the "lens" that he was using to view the definition of an engineer was that of professional societies.
It seems that membership requirements for professional engineering societies is orthogonal to whether or not an individual is considered an engineer. In particular, the fact that some try so hard to include managers who no longer practice engineeringFor a particular example, Layton continually discusses the fact that some societies tried to allow managerial counterparts into their society (individuals that presumably used to hold an engineering position).
The three chapters by Noble seemed to dance with the notion that engineers were at their heart businessmen. The lens he used was more industrial.
Gieryn's paper was particularly odd. He seemed to seriously struggle with the definition of science. I was perplexed by his difficulty in defining it, and establishing its boundaries.
Science is simple - it's the practice of the scientific method, which we all learned it in middle school if not grade school. For something to be considered scientific knowledge it has to be falsifiable, among other things.
I think the three papers combined start to unveil the actual boundaries and definition of an engineer. In that regard, a good set of readings.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Thoughts on the Dall'Alba Paper
I had a much larger post regarding this article that I was going to make, but it was fairly oblique. I think I've been able to filter it down some to this:
At one point the author states "The process of becoming a professional occurs, then, through continual interaction with other professionals, as well as those outside the professions. It is misleading to attempt to separate the individual from engagement with others in this process of becoming."
I agree with this completely. I also believe that it serves as an excellent argument against what the paper is suggesting - that we "reconfigure professional education as a process of becoming." The process of becoming occurs in large part through the interaction with other *professionals*. The belief that educators are equivalent to a given professional in the same field is foolish. Moreover, even if this were true the educators are fewer in number, and the interactions between student and educator are far less involved than those between professionals.
I think the author summarizes it best for me:
"For instance, in what ways and to what extent is it appropriate to shape another's becoming? Whose knowing, acting and being serve as ‘golden standards’? Questions such as these underpin the design and implementation of professional education programs, whether or not they are explicitly addressed in those programs."
I would argue that questions such as those patently do NOT underpin the design and implementation of any professional education program. Those questions are intimate, personal questions that are decided on an individual basis by individuals based on their interactions with other *professionals*.
Thus, I respectfully disagree with the core argument made in this paper. Schools that emphasize ontology exist already – for instance, the entire Catholic School System. Leave the facts to the schools and the beliefs to the people.
At one point the author states "The process of becoming a professional occurs, then, through continual interaction with other professionals, as well as those outside the professions. It is misleading to attempt to separate the individual from engagement with others in this process of becoming."
I agree with this completely. I also believe that it serves as an excellent argument against what the paper is suggesting - that we "reconfigure professional education as a process of becoming." The process of becoming occurs in large part through the interaction with other *professionals*. The belief that educators are equivalent to a given professional in the same field is foolish. Moreover, even if this were true the educators are fewer in number, and the interactions between student and educator are far less involved than those between professionals.
I think the author summarizes it best for me:
"For instance, in what ways and to what extent is it appropriate to shape another's becoming? Whose knowing, acting and being serve as ‘golden standards’? Questions such as these underpin the design and implementation of professional education programs, whether or not they are explicitly addressed in those programs."
I would argue that questions such as those patently do NOT underpin the design and implementation of any professional education program. Those questions are intimate, personal questions that are decided on an individual basis by individuals based on their interactions with other *professionals*.
Thus, I respectfully disagree with the core argument made in this paper. Schools that emphasize ontology exist already – for instance, the entire Catholic School System. Leave the facts to the schools and the beliefs to the people.
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