In Context

With so many suggestions to improve the engineering education process which include integrating (often times called networking) the curriculum, more focus on design and less focus on the engineering sciences, and implementing more of the project-based learning activities, with all that, the discussion on educating engineers the history of engineering and technology seems to be of less interest.

We all like stories, and humans are story tellers. The origin from which all the suggestions to improve the engineering education mentioned above is the effort to make engineering in academia match as much as attainable engineering as practiced in the field. For example, the focus on project-based learning activities is an effort to make the classroom-lab setting (although not necessarily the best environment to teach engineering) match projects as implemented in reality. So, it’s all about context. The history of engineering and technology is no different in this sense.

When one thinks about it, a certain engineering concept is basically an abstraction, or an ideal, of a complex situation that some person comprehended at some point. This abstract concept seems to be the middle point between two stages: the first stage is the complex phenomenon that once was observed and then was abstracted, and the final stage is when this abstract concept is taken to another complex situation to be applied to. The demand for a technical curriculum to teach as many abstract concepts as possible leaves no place for teaching the context in which a certain concept was abstracted, or, in other words, the history of the discovery.

What is often neglected as well is the fact that engineering itself is practiced in context. The real world provides more context than the academic exercises, and therefore the need to teach history (and context) seems to be more urgent. Engineering is practiced to achieve the needs of a society; it does not exist for its sake but, rather, in the social and cultural contexts that motivates, and constrains, the practice of the profession.

Professor Walter Vincenti, professor emeritus of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, is the author of the book What Engineers Know and How They Knew It. The title glimpses to the fact that there is a context for what engineers know, so why not teaching it? Professor Vincenti is reported to describe the academic community’s view of engineering as “an exotic and incomprehensible activity that goes on ‘over there’.” Teaching the history of engineering and technology can better prepare future engineers to practice engineering in its real context: the society which it serves.

Images of an Engineer

I enjoy reading Henry Petroski. In Remaking the World, Petroski relates the story of a friend of a friend who nicknamed him “Steinmetz.” This friend was referring to Charles Steinmetz. The parents of this friend, who himself was inclined toward business and politics and not at all toward science and technology, believed that Steinmetz was “the embodiment of American engineering.”

Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz was born in Breslau, Germany in 1865. He earned a doctorate in mathematics, and immigrated to America in 1889. He joined the General Electric Company, and drew upon his strong mathematical physics background to solve practical problems for which he brought patents for GE. In addition to his employment with GE, Steinmetz joined the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and published papers that showed that he was in the forefront of his field. One of his many contributions to electrical engineering was the hysteresis loss law that is used to calculate power loss in transformers. He was also the one who introduced and developed the use of complex numbers for calculations involving alternating current (AC). (I was personally surprised to know that he was the first person who introduced it, as this is a powerful tool in electrical engineering for people who are familiar with the field.)

Aside from his ingenuity, Steinmetz was an eccentric person; the combination of the two characteristics made it easy to his mention in the newspapers and popular magazines. GE’s public relations department helped also with this publicity and promoted him as the first who generated the power of lightning in the laboratory as “the very personification of modern electrical development.” Petrsoki commented on this popularity that it gave “the cold, abstract, and sometimes feared new technology a human embodiment.”

With this publicity, lots of photos of Steinmetz in different life arenas were distributed. One of the most famous ones is this picture of him with Albert Einstein. I would like to quote Petrsoki’s comment on this picture:



“The father of relativity stands tall, formal, and self-assured beside the short and stooping, hand-in-pocket and smoking, rumpled and scowling figure who looks to be, ambivalently, both leaning toward the famous scientist and pushing him back with an elbow … In it [Steinmetz] seems complemented only by his standing next to a Nobel laureate, as if the engineer needed a scientist to lean upon. The photograph’s semiotics reinforce the stereotype of the engineer vis-à-vis the scientist, of engineering versus science. In this picture the great engineer Steinmetz is reduced to a caricature of himself; by implication, his achievements is diminished relative to that of the giant he stands beside.

“The Einstein-Steinmetz photo is actually as false as are its implications for the relationship between science and engineering. The great scientists and the great engineer never did pose one-on-one, as they are presented in this photo.”

The photo turned to be fabricated from a group photo that was taken in the occasion of a Radio Cooperation of America-sponsored demonstration of transoceanic telegraph transmission at New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1921.



This is, however, the photo that is most popular for Steinmetz who is considered by some “the embodiment of American engineering.”

I believe this story shows how the public perceives engineers and scientists, and, somehow the relationship between engineering and science. Steinmetz was involved later in his life in a distinguished period of service on the Schenectady Board of Education.

Bibliography:
Petroski, Henry (1997). Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Twas the Night before Youtube Poem

Twas the night before Youtube, when all through the Office
Not a student was stirring, not even a mouse.
The papers were saved in the comp'ter with care,
In hopes that St Alice soon would be there.

The students were nestled all snug in their chairs,
While visions of doctorates danced in their heads.
And Tosin in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long desk-side nap.

When out in the hall there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the corner I flew like a goat,
Tore open the doors and threw on my coat.

The light on the tile of the new-mopped floor
Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a professor with stacked papers and gear.

With a smile so bright, so lively and nice,
I knew in a moment it must be St Alice.
More rapid than eagles her students they came,
And she whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Cory! Now, Ruthie! Now Tosin and Hadi!
On, Lorie! On Daniel! On Xingyu and Nichole!
To the end of the hall! to the classroom and blackboard!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

Her eyes-how they twinkled! her dimples how merry!
Her cheeks were like roses, her laughter was inspiring!
Her ideas were exciting, her summaries quick
And the smile on her face made it all click!

She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work,
And filled all the blackboards, then turned with a jerk.
And laying her finger aside of her nose,
And giving a nod, down the hall she goes!

She sprang to her car, to her students gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard her exclaim, ‘ere she drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and get your work done tonight!"

My journey of writing the essay “what is engineering education”

When I started to write the essay of “what is engineering education”, I had a hard time to integrate the former two essays into this one, because I thought engineering education was not simply the combination of engineering and education. I learnt a lot about the history and contemporary development of engineering education in the last four week’s readings, which greatly improved my understanding of the discipline. However, the readings addressed so many curriculum design and pedagogical strategies that I found it hard to pick up some “crucial points” and therefore I totally got lost.

In despair, I reread the first two essays talking about education and engineering respectively. It really helped! I quickly figured out I could utilize the structure and main theme of the first essay to write my third essay. Also I could discuss how we taught future engineers based on the characteristics of engineering that I defined in the second essay. Therefore, in this essay, I present my understanding of the aim of engineering education and how to educate engineering students to address the general question of what is engineering education. This structure is similar to that of my first essay. For instance, I discuss how to educate based on my definition of what engineering is (ideas of the second essay) and the aims of engineering education (discussed in the first part of this essay). In the last part of this essay, I propose some challenges in regards to engineering educators, which is inspired by the last week’s reading and is something that I found important to bring forward.

Epistemology vs Ontology

Dall' Alba brings up a problem when the educational program focuses exclusively on epistemology that they miss out on the “being” of the profession (2009). Students educated this way may have the skills and knowledge, but may not know how to apply them in practice. On the other side, knowing ontology without epistemology can also be a downfall. Dall' Alba poses how an architect can graduate “without knowing how to locate a building on a designated site?” Ontology without epistemology, would suggest that although the architect knows how to locate a building, they do not know how to construct an architectural plan. So, it does appear that both types of knowledge are important and that there are downfalls if the student is only seeing one item. This paradox of rigor versus relevance that Schon speaks of is a tension that Palmer believes that we need to be comfortable with to manage and provide a good foundation for students (2000; Schon, 2000).

Dall’Alba, G. (2009). Learning Professional Ways of Being. Learning to be Professionals, 111-132.

Palmer, P., & Neuenschwander, D. (2000). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. American Journal of Physics, 68, 93.

Schon, D. (2000). The new scholarship requires a new epistemology. Learning from change: landmarks in teaching and learning in higher education from Change magazine, 1969-1999, 32.

Any thoughts or comments on my assumptions about the future challenges in engineering and engineering education??

What do engineering and engineering education need to be in the 21st century?

            To see into the future requires assumptions about our future society and the future of engineering and engineering education. These are my assumptions:

·         knowledge-human knowledge and technical knowledge will advance at a furious pace, the fastest in recorded human history doubling every ten years; perhaps even at an accelerating pace as we engage hundreds of millions of more humans in advanced education and commerce in Asia and China; (National Academy of Engineering, 2005)

·         knowledge-the scope and depth human knowledge and technical knowledge will be advancing so rapidly that continuous learning is now a requirement of competency in in every scientific or professional discipline; (National Academy of Engineering, 2005)

·         knowledge-problems faced by teams of 21st century engineers will not be bounded by a single technology or geography and will be influenced and constrained by the social tensions that exist within and across cultures, between countries and bounded by the role of engineers as defined within these societies and engineering disciplines; (Vest, 2008)

·         practice-technical competence will remain the number one selector for engineers and engineering educators, (Crawley, 2007)

·         practice-professional engineer work forces will function in a  integrated multicultural, multidisciplinary, and instantly electronically connected virtual team work environment, aka, the 21st century workplace; (Vest, 2008)

·         practice-engineers globally will source or acquire any missing knowledge or skills required to solve problems working in a team environment not as individuals; (Vest, 2008)

·         practice-engineering education and engineering educators will have to continuously acquire, and even create new knowledge, about engineering and about how to educate engineers to serve in the 21st century (Crawley, 2007) also XXX

·         society-The earth's resources will reach ever more crucial limits or constraints on reproduction or replenishment as we have already reached with fish stocks, fresh water, raw materials, and food distribution; (The Economist, 2010)

·         society-The earth's population will grow from 6 billion in 2010 to 8 billion in 2040 and 9 billion in 2070;(The Economist, 2010)

·         engineering education-the tension of technical competence versus the expanding role of engineers in society will remain a huge challenge for the improvement of engineering education; and (Crawley, 2007)

·         engineering education-the tensions and boundaries limiting the role of engineering in society and engineering education research in engineering will not magically disappear. (Crawley, 2007)

Hurrah!!! You Tubes Gobsmackingly fabulous

Just have to say how much I have enjoyed the videos - and now they are in a place where I can play them over and over again and send them to friends!

I know how much all of you put into this project - you all amazed us and showed us new ways of thinking and new groovy YouTube skills.

Hurrah!