TBL Cinco de Mayo

The Bottom Line is that I’m tired. I left my hotel at 10:00 PM Central on Friday and I will arrive home (I’m still on an airplane-the third of four legs) at 10:00 PM tonight. Oh well, I guess that is what happens when you travel long distances.

I spent most of my time on the long flight from Milan to Chicago writing a grant to the National Science Foundation. The proposal is to fund 3 years of faculty development for our math, physics, chemistry, and engineering teachers. Times have changed in education. Fascinating new research on the brain has evolved a new framework for understanding How People Learn (coincidentally referred to as the HPL framework). In the education of engineers, a whole new discipline has emerged – Purdue University and Virginia Tech University now have departments of Engineering Education and people are getting masters and doctoral degrees.

When I first started teaching – I thought it was pretty easy. After all, I had 18 or more years of first hand observation! I took the textbook that was supposed to be used for the course, read the chapter, determined which points I thought were most important, and presented them in class by writing them on the board. It was (and unfortunately still is) considered the acceptable way to teach. After all, I was teaching the way I was taught (and in my own mind) even better.

Now, though, much more information is available. How we learn is fascinating and a whole “tackle box” of methods are available. The purpose of this grant is to bring experts at casting each of these new lures to campus to teach us the new methods. As well as to develop a framework for long lasting improvement.

TBL: As engineers, advancements in how you do you work is a part of your every day life, as educators we’re just catching up.