It's About Learning

I have been trying to save the posting of exceptional videos for my Wednesday Watchlist but I just can’t wait with video.

1. Asking questions (Socrates 101)
2. Labeling technology and design challenges (Aristotle 101 )
3. Modelling problems qualitatively (Aristotle 102 or Hume 101)
4. Decomposing design problems (Descartes 101)
5. Gathering data (Galileo or Bacon 101)
6. Visualizing solutions and generating ideas (da Vinci 101 )
7. Communicating solutions in written and oral form (Newman 101)

By associating important figures in intellectual history with each of the seven thinking skills Goldberg points out that each of these problems have been already solved or addressed. He is also pointing out that our narrow form of contemporary education which emphasizes plugging numbers into a formula and the regurgitation of information not only which excludes these fundamental skills so well established in classical education but it is leaving our engineers, and I would argue so many other students, ill prepared to efficiently solve current problems.

Goldberg’s Slideshare presentation The missing basics: What engineers don’t learn and why they need to learn it is also worth checking out.