Professor Woodie Flowers on Educational Reform

[dlavery]

I would like to interrupt the normal, ongoing discussions concerning the post-mortem of the 2009 season and prognostications about 2010 for a diversionary discourse on an important meta-topic.



Three weeks before the FIRST Championships in Atlanta, Dr. Woodie Flowers gave a great presentation at Olin College on the transformation of engineering education. The video of the lecture provides some wonderful insights into Woodie's concerns about the future of engineering as an academic pursuit and a profession (note that he refers to "Karan" in the beginning of the video - Karan Watson spoke just before him at the Engineer of the Future Summit, and she is the one to whom he is referring).

Particularly eye-opening is the discussion, about a third of the way through, concerning "what/where did you learn?" vs. "what/where did you use?" If that does not make you seriously ask the question "why do we keep trying to learn this way?" then nothing will. The points that follow, and why they are so important, will be obvious to this audience.

Woodie's comments during this presentation provide a great background for further understanding (and amplifying) many of the comments Woodie made during his introductory speech in Atlanta.

-dave



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[juanfe92]

Very insightful...any chance you could post a link to download the video file?

[miketwalker]

Definitely a great video for this community to see, especially educators. I think Woodie brings up some great points and ideas on how to use the type of system we have in FIRST as well as in other areas to revamp the problems we face with our education system.

Try to take the 40 minutes and watch this, it is certainly worth your time.

[Aren_Hill]

I agree that this is definitely worth watching, i also want the change to happen now (im stuck in the "training" courses at the moment college wise)

[Greg Marra]

I was fortunate to be able to attend Woodie's talk at the Engineer of the Future conference. Woodie's points about how learning works and why the current educational system fails to pay any attention are very well presented. I highly recommend the video of the talk.

[Mr MOE]

Dave:

This is an excellent lecture and should be required viewing for anyone interested in the future of engineering education. Woodie always has terrific insights, a good handle on the current reality, a vision of what a positive future would look like, and an entertaining way of communicating all of it.

Thanks for sharing. I have forwarded this along to many colleagues. Hopefully, this will help many people open their minds to what could be.

Regards.

John

[JVN]

I finally found time to watch this on Friday. What an incredible, thought provoking, insightful lecture. I recommend everyone take time to watch and listen.

-John

[Rich Kressly]

Dave,

Thanks for sharing. I saw Andy Baker had posted the link in his Facebook account this weekend and immediately watched the lecture. Then I watched it again. Then I emailed the link to colleagues. Then I watched select parts for a third time.

As an educator, even at the secondary level, I find it to be my responsibility to help spread the kind of eye opening data and information Woodie puts forth in this lecture and a few others like it. I frequently find myself saddened by the state of the "system" I am a part of, yet there is a growing population of folks who are doing what they can and I find a great deal of energy in those examples which enable me to continue to do my part.

[techtiger1]

This is absolutely brilliant. as someone who is in the college system as a undergraduate student I see everyday the short comings of institutional learning. The system has cost me time and money and I know it will help me in the long run but dealing with the structure of learning at the college level is a challenge for me everyday. Woodie makes some excellent points about the state of things as they are right now and where they are going. This video is definitely a must see for everyone on these forums.

Thanks for sharing Mr. Lavery,
-Drew

[Robert Cawthon]

Originally Posted by juanfe92

Very insightful...any chance you could post a link to download the video file?

Consider this a second vote (request?) for a downloadable file.

[IKE]

Where can I sign up? No seriously, this is very exciting stuff. The Engineering school I went to had both Senior Design and Sophomore design for the very reasons that Woodie mentioned. I didn't realize how fortunate I was until I spent time in Industry and found out that many did not get those opportunities. Even with the extra design time, I still feel that 50% of my "education" came from extracurricular projects offered at the school.

A quick but hopefully meaningful story:
Right before I graduated, my school had something called the ME Forum, where the profs asked the students, what did we do good vs. what did we do wrong. One senior, who had been awarded the Outstanding ME award (only given to 1 student of 250 each year) from the faculty stood up and said, "I wish I got the opportunity to do more Hands On projects." The faculty were taken back that this student made such a comment especially after recieveing the highest undergraduate award. While they were stammering for an answer, I stood up and asked what projects she took on herself (she was a good friend of mine, so I could challenge her). She had numerous leadership examples, but no technical examples. I told her she failed herself, because this school had a ton of extracurricular activities she could have been involved in. Afterwords the assistant dean thanked me for bringing that up.

My point with this argument is I agree with Woodie for the need for change, but I feel it is available to those looking for it. For those of you hoping that hope that Woodie gets this going before you go to college, make sure you use the opportunities available to you while you are there. This doesn't mean another 4 years of FIRST. This means joining a tech club and building a racecar or dunebuggy. Participating in an ASME or IEEE design challenge competition. Join a team doing a DARPA project. DO SOMETHING! Real education is like many other things in the world worth finding, some may stumble across it on accident, but for most it will take some effort and initiative on the student's part to find it.

Remember, the kid in High School that focuses on taking the easiest classes often ends up working the hardest job for the lowest pay. That is not Karma folks, that is simple Investing 101.

Also make sure you balance this "education" with Woody's "training", or your grammar may be worse than mine.....

[dtengineering]

Ironically, the LACK of hands-on design/build projects as part of the curriculum in Engineering at UBC (back in the late 80's, early 90's) was one of the reasons I left engineering to teach tech studies.

Since then, my job has been pretty much 100% design/build projects! Not always with the budget that I want, of course, but often projects of my own design.

If you are at university, or looking to switch careers, and are willing to give up a bit of salary for a bit of security (and some half-decent holidays) and want to play a hands-on role in educational reform, the school system can always do with more people with an engineering background.

Not many people, after all, get to have "build cool robots with kids" as part of their job description.

Jason

[AdamHeard]

I agree, our education system is broken.

Even at a college that prides itself on being hands on, and has the slogan of, "Learn by doing", I meet upperclassmen in engineering courses who couldn't do simple design challenges.

In one class teaching design standards and solidworks, the entire quarter was just CADing off of a drawing. The final project was to take a picture of a clamp, and design one with production drawings.... you wouldn't believe how many kids were baffled.

Don't even get me started on high school.... I'll just leave it at that from what I have seen of the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy (home of 1717), they're doing something RIGHT.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by IKE

Where can I sign up? No seriously, this is very exciting stuff.

Yes indeed, exciting times indeed !!!

Yesterday I had to give two lectures that 1/3 paralleled Woodies lecture, except I gave a shorter lighter version.

Today I had a meeting with a university professor and we talked a lot about this potential new wave of educational material, specifically we were talking about the visualization techniques used to describe the EM field and The Inner Life of a Cell. This professor claims he is crazier than me, which is a tall order, but he has a theory about using video games to educate.

( are you listening Dave, Woodie ? ) - What if this years Autodesk Visualization contest theme could be an example of using 3dsMax to create an educational animation that describes a mathematical, chemical, biological, or other STEM concept.

For example: Recently I spent an hour talking to a 3rd grade class about engineering. They lobbied for two things. One they wanted a bunch of magnets. And secondly they wanted a video game to do something, I can't remember what. Pokemon or something.

What if - we had a visualization tool that demonstrated the fields around a simple bar magnet. The do some gaming and connect two end to end..... show some more fields. Let the kids do something interactive to help them grasp the concepts. And then we give them the magnets. And then we have them explain how they really work.

Simple concept - Powerful insight

Any takers ??

PS. For students in Northwest Atlanta area, "Corky College" will be conducting animation classes, 6 to 9 pm, Tuesday, Thursday, starting June 2nd. Let me know if you want to enroll. Tuition is $ 0.00

[Mr. Freeman]

Interesting video. I agree that the system needs to change. I don't agree with a lot of what Woodie said though.

The whole bit about textbooks being as outdated as records is, I believe, complete nonsense. I like my textbooks and I will never consider replacing them with an electronic version.

I can take them with me, I can mark multiple pages, I can hold 4 pages open with one hand and flip between them easily (eg. the concept of something, an example, and a table of enthalpy values). My books don't run out of battery power if I forget my charger, my books don't blue screen on me, I don't have to boot them up, I don't have to shut them down, they don't get hot if I leave them on my lap.
I can write notes into my books (don't even start with the tablet PC talk, writing on one of those is marginally easier than writing on glass with a crayon), I can put bookmarks in them, etc.

Books also don't flicker or cause eye strain like computer monitors do (and this isn't something you can "just deal with", ever try studying for a test with a migraine due to insane eye strain? Neither have I, but I don't want to try.)

The kindle and Sony readers use an e-ink display which solves the eye strain problems. They have their own problems. They're more than $200 on their own, then there's the textbooks that you have to buy to put on them anyway. Then there's the fact that amazon can lock you out of your kindle account at any time for any reason and leave you with no ability to purchase more books on the kindle. THIS IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR A BOOK. A product that you can be locked out of at any time is only as useful for serious work as it is in its most worthless state.

I do agree with Woodie's open-source textbook idea though. (He never used that term, but I'm pretty sure that's what he's talking about). Getting more people to work on textbooks and finally getting rid of these publishers that make more "revisions" of their textbooks that are really just rearranging material and changing the problem sets. (eg. How much has calculus changed in the last 100 years? Compare that with the number of new calculus textbook versions in the last 5 years)