ENGR 201: Engineering Analysis III
Jeff Hieb, Ph.D.
Fall 2008 i2a Faculty Learning Community on Critical Thinking (FLC-CT)
As a result of participating in the Fall 2008 FLC-CT, Dr. Hieb incorporated aspects of the Paul-Elder framework of critical thinking into his course. In addition to introducing the language of the framework, Dr. Hieb committed to modeling his use of critical thinking for his students. By making his thought process explicit, Dr. Hieb guided students through a step by step approach to engineering reasoning. Additionally, Dr. Hieb began each new unit with a reflection of concepts covered by previous units and an outline of how each new topic builds upon the knowledge gained previously.
Dr. Hieb also implemented a Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT) used to assess his students' understanding of multiple concepts presented in the course. In his own words:
In response to my FLC participation, I used the following Defining Features Matrix CAT for the course, to be given towards the end of the course. The assignment asks students is to literally check concepts that they might employ to attack the given situations.