2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Critical and Creative Thinking Activities for Engaged Learning in Graphics and Visualization Course

Presented at Pedagogy and Learning Within Engineering Design Graphics I

Shermer (2002) describes humans as pattern seeking, story-telling animals. Critical thinking is evaluative, selective, analytical, fact based, convergent and logical. It can be viewed as “pattern thinking”. Creative thinking on the other hand is exploratory, nonjudgmental, imaginative, divergent and playful. It can be viewed as “pattern breaking”. Creative thinking is a basic mental operation available to everyone, and research studies indicate it can be developed. In engineering design, creativity goes beyond consumer wants and needs; it brings added utility to a design and bridges the gap between form and function.

Teaching Engineering Graphics to freshman engineering students though ideation methods is the subject of this paper. Various learning-centered instruction strategies are being implemented in a freshman engineering graphics course. With the instructor acting as a facilitator, the objective of each of these strategies is to increase the student responsibility in learning through improved engagement. Engineering graphics is essential part of the engineering design process through which engineers and designers generate new ideas and solve problems. Ideation is traditionally defined as a structured approach to thinking for the purpose of solving a problem. Ideation process involves critical thinking augmented with creative thinking.

Albert Einstein once said “You can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it”. This work poses following questions to define engaging classroom activities with ideation stage of design and to develop new methods in teaching graphics and visualization fundamentals to freshman engineering students.

Does our education and curriculum-based classroom learning focus us to think in a certain conventional way? Why is engineering design typically done with a set of predefined parameters (Engineering Specs) operating within a restricted framework (constraints) with an end-use in mind? Don’t you think that restricts your imagination and ties you down with conventional thinking leading to routine engineering products? Why do we take conventional methods and wisdom for granted? How do we untie ourselves from conventional thinking? How to come out of design fixation problems? What is the role of Unconventional Thinking in Engineering Design (UnTiED) ideation? How about designing products even without any predefined end-use in mind and after design is done determine how the product will be useful? How fun will it be to question the status quo and design something just to quench your curiosity thirst? How to create engineering design ideas by seeking random connections with unusual combinations between unrelated concepts?

This work is part of author’s Teaching Scholar Program to explore research and best practices related to a theme, and develop initiatives to pilot during the Fall and Spring semester (2015 – 2016), incorporating and implementing the new ideas they have developed. The primary objectives of this work is

 to develop critical and creative thinking skills in freshman students through activities and discussions on major discoveries in science, engineering and technology that questioned the conventional wisdom
 Using UnTiED ideation methods for engaged learning in Graphics and Visualization Course
 Preparing students to contemplate and question the day-to-day products around us in terms of the way they look, the way they are designed; argue and challenge the status quo of variety of engineering products; and realize the value in unconventional thinking, a productive process enabling us to be more creative and innovative.
 Develop metrics and assessment tools for creativity and critical thinking skills in individual and team design visualization student projects.


Authors

Dr. Raghu Pucha Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Raghuram V. Pucha is a faculty at the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, in the area of CAD/CAE and Manufacturing. Dr. Pucha teaches computer graphics and design courses at Georgia Tech., and conducts research in the area of developing computational tools for the design, analysis and manufacturing of advanced materials and systems. Dr. Pucha has three provisional U.S. patents and co-authored over 60 research papers. He is honored with Geoffrey G. Eichholz Faculty Teaching Award in 2015 and Undergraduate Educator Award in 2012 from the Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL), Georgia Tech.
Dr. Tristan T Utschig http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-1057-3825 Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Tris Utschig is Assistant Director for the Office of Assessment at Georgia Tech. Formerly, he was Assistant Director for Scholarship and Assessment of Teaching and Learning in the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. He has extensive experience consulting with faculty for research, planning, implementation, and assessment of educational innovations and programs. Formerly, he was Associate Professor of Engineering Physics at Lewis-Clark State College. Dr. Utschig is president of the International Society for Engineering Pedagogy’s National Monitoring Committee USA, and past president of the Academy of Process Educators. Dr. Utschig completed his PhD in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Dr. Sunni Haag Newton http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2331-1349 Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Sunni Newton is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC). Her research focuses on assessing the implementation and outcomes of educati
Dr. Meltem Alemdar Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Dr. Meltem Alemdar is s Associate Director and Principal Research Scientist at Georgia Institute of Technologyâ€™s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC). Her research focuses on improving K-12 STEM education through
Dr. Roxanne Moore http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0536-4957 Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Roxanne Moore is currently a Research Engineer at Georgia Tech with appointments in the school of Mechanical Engineering and the Center for Education Integrating Mathematics, Science, and Computing (CEISMC). She is involved with engineering education inno
Dr. Caroline R. Noyes Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Caroline Noyes is trained as an educational psychologist, and her education and work have focused on assessing student learning both in and outside of the classroom. Experiences in both academic affairs and student affairs provide her with a holistic understanding of the modern university and a broad collection of assessment methodologies suitable to a variety of situations. As her intellectual pursuits turned increasingly towards broader applications of educational assessment and evaluation, she left the classroom and moved to an administrative position focusing on both academic assessment of student learning and program evaluation. This administrative move has allowed her to increase use of qualitative assessment methods, and to enhance her skills in survey design.

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