The Wrench, a new MSc in Engineering Education, and Blogging as reflective practice

During the International Symposium for Engineering Education 2018, which has taken place at UCL over the past two days, I have recommended The Wrench by Primo Levi to two engineering educator colleagues, so I'm including it here too - one of my favourite books, essential reading anyway in my view, but it happens to be about the trials, tribulations and achievements of an engineer, the main protagonist....a wonderfully wise and life-affirming novel (?) which I have written about before.

My Optimistic but Sceptical blog has never exactly become extinct, but I have made very few posts over the past five years.  I am hoping to be able to post more often now, for a number of reasons: first, I have come to the end of my stint as Programme Leader for the Institute of Education post-compulsory PGCE, and second, I am teaching and leading one of the core modules for an exciting new MSc here at UCL Institute of Education, in Engineering Education.

The first change means I expect to have a little more space and time for musing and reflecting on the issues and ideas that arise from my work, and for sometimes at least writing them down.  The second development has come about as a result of my Ed D thesis study, now completed in draft, and awaiting the final stage of formative feedback before formal submission in September.  This study is about the contribution of informal aspects of workplace life and activity to effective practice, practitioner learning, and innovation.  My research sites included a Further Education college and the R&D division of a large engineering company.  My department at the Institute of Education has teamed up with the UCL Faculty of Engineering in a number of different projects, one of which is this new MSc, and I am leading one of the core modules, on Engineering and Education: Practice, Innovation and Leadership. 

This module will cover such topics as:

• Persuading more girls to study engineering

• Organisations and change: the engineering workplace as a site for learning and innovation

• Preparation for C21st engineers: innovative design in UG and PG engineering programmes

• Apprenticeship as a model for learning engineering in times of change

• Approaches to leadership in multinational engineering partnerships

• Policy development and organisational strategies for an uncertain future

Anyone interested in finding out more about this programme should contact me here.

A third reason for coming back to my blog is that one of the stand-out findings of my research is the importance for effective practice, and especially for innovation, of 'writing' on the one hand, and of 'peer review' on the other.  By writing I mean any form of representation of any aspect of practice, including the most informal or temporary incidences of writing - doodles and scribbles for example, also notes, drafts, rough drawings or charts, and more formal types of writing such as reports or position papers, hether or not for publication.  By peer review I mean any kind of evaluative feedback, whether formal and written, or informally and unplanned as part of a conversation. Organisations which enable and encourage these practices as key elements of work, in terms of making space and time available for them, are likely, my study suggests, to be more effective and more innovative.  A blog is both a platform for writing in different degrees of formality, and a medium for sharing and potential evaluative feedback.  So I'm aiming to practise a little of what my study appears to teach.

My final reason for taking up the blog again is that my colleague working on the new MSc, Abel Nyamapfene, blogs regularly about Teaching and Learning in Engineering - see the link over on the right - and I like the idea of occasional blog conversations, especially as we work in different buildings!

Primo Levi

Bad Science, Leonardo, and professional learning

Ben Goldacre, the Guardian's Bad Science columnist, is taking a holiday to write a book!  Not Science Fiction, surely, Ben?  I'm sure it will be worth waiting for, but how the hell will we manage in the meantime without you looking after things in the Truth Dept?

Your sign-off column this weekend is a beautifully succinct series of nuggets of wisdom - the most important one in my view being:

'everyone needs to understand how we know if something is good for us, or bad for us. The basics of evidence-based medicine, of trials, meta-analyses, cohort studies and the like should be taught in schools and waiting rooms.'

I fear this is not what Michael Gove has in mind for the central element of the English Bac....

Also this weekend I listened on the radio to a heart surgeon reminding us that while no one is perfect (so things may go wrong for even the most skilled and experienced practitioners of any craft or occupation), it is still true that when working in highly complex situations which in a real sense are unique every time, then more experienced practitioners, assuming they are working with the best available knowledge, are a better bet than relative novices, however brilliant those novices may be.  He was talking in the context of a discussion about the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, and suggested that surgeons are researching and learning their craft every time they perform their work, just like Leonardo, who never stopped enquiring into nature, never stopped making descriptive notes and drawings, writing down thoughts and hypotheses, and then testing his new ideas to see what would happen; though with him it was in dozens of different disciplines. This is a perfect description of professional learning: practice on its own doesn't produce learning - it needs to be accompanied by reflection, and probably discussion with colleagues (something Leonardo may not have much opportunity for), but also crucially it needs to be made explicit in the form perhaps of writing, or of drawings, so that it can be returned to, re-evaluated, and repeatedly tested to see if it stands up to scrutiny.  If it survives this examination, then it might be reliable enough to be incorporated into future practice.

There's also a mouth-watering review in today's paper of a book on this topic by Daniel Kahneman, called 'Thinking, fast and slow', enquiring into the processes by which people make decisions, how learning contributes to these processes, and how and why even experts make unaccountable mistakes.  I hope it's out in paperback soon.  Meanwhile here's the link for a terrific TED talk by Kahneman on why we should stop using the word happiness!

Does investing in computers produce better test scores?

Well, no, probably: see
http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/denying-the-facts-investing-in-computers-and-higher-test-scores/

Larry Cuban's piece is brilliant on the way blind prejudice often determines policy, rather than good research.  But who wants better test scores anyway?  Do better test scores mean better learning and better educated students?

Well, not necessarily.  Standardised testing is a good way to evaluate the outcomes of a process intended to produce millions of identical items to the same objectively measurable quality standards, as efficiently as possible.  It's good for mass production processes, for making knives and forks, for example, or cars, or washing machines.  But citizens?

Education processes produces voters, citizens, members of communities and families, workers, and this is one factory where we don't want identical products.  In fact, we probably don't want a factory at all: see Ken Robinson's brilliant animated lecture at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U.  So why do policymakers persist in applying mass production methods, such as standardised testing, payment by results, league tables, and command and control inspection systems, to learning?

Wisdom from the past # 436b - extracts from the longest book in the world

'If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research' Einstein

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12733522