Year: 2016
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: How many piano tuners are there in the city of Chicago? Estimation of rough but quantitative answers to unexpected questions about many aspects of the natural world was frequently used by Enrico Fermi to gage one’s power over his/her theoretical and experimental studies. These types of questions draw upon a deep understanding of the real world and upon everyday experience, and it is the mindset these questions engender that motivates the reinventing of the standard Engineering Programming course found in some form at every engineering school in the country. Engineers are problem solvers and the only way to learn problem solving is to do it! Only a human can solve problems; the computer is a tool. Design problems are the heart of engineering and to solve them requires creativity, teamwork, and broad knowledge. The approach to solving an engineering problem should proceed in an orderly, stepwise fashion, but often problem solving is an iterative procedure. To become a good problem solver, an engineer must have: knowledge, experience, learning skills, motivation, and communication and leadership skills. The ability to logically break a problem into pieces is most important. With all this in mind, a pilot course is now being taught that attempts to instill excitement and relevance into a course that, in our opinion, desperately needs revision. A course summary is shown below. Student evaluations for the course, as well as evaluations of how the course impacts courses in the sophomore and junior years where problem-solving skills and engineering tools are widely applied, are being conducted and will be reported.
DOI: 10.18260/p.27302
Institution: Hofstra University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2496534249