Ingenieur Vol.72 ingenieur October 2017-FA3 | Page 50

INGENIEUR
Electric’s on-the-job engineering training for
women with degrees in mathematics and physics,
and the Curtiss-Wright Engineering Program had
“Curtiss-Wright Cadette (“Engineering Cadettes”,
e.g., Rosella Fenton) partnered with Cornell, Penn
State,  Purdue, the  University of Minnesota,
the  University of Texas, RPI, and  Iowa State
University  to create an engineering curriculum
that eventually enrolled over 600 women. The
course lasted ten months and focused primarily
on aircraft design and production.
MODELS OF LEARNING & TEACHING
STYLES
A student’s learning style may be defined in large
part by the answers to five questions:-
1) What type of information does the student
preferentially perceive: sensory (external)—
sights, sounds, physical sensations, or
intuitive (internal)—possibilities, insights,
hunches?
2) Through which sensory channel is external
information most effectively perceived:
visual— pictures, diagrams, graphs,
demonstrations, or auditory— words,
sounds? (Other sensory channels—touch,
taste, and smell—are relatively unimportant
in most educational environments and will
not be considered here.)
3) With which organisation of information is
the student most comfortable: inductive—
facts and observations are given, underlying
principles are inferred, or deductive—
principles are given, consequences and
applications are deduced?
4) How does the student prefer to process
information: actively— through engagement
in physical activity or discussion, or
reflectively— through introspection?
5) How does the student progress toward
understanding: sequentially—in continual
steps, or globally—in large jumps,
holistically?
Teaching styles may also be defined in terms of
the answers to five questions:-
1) What type of information is emphasized
by the instructor: concrete— factual, or
abstract—conceptual, theoretical?
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2) What mode of presentation is stressed:
vi sual — pic ture s , diag r am s , f ilm s ,
demonstrations, or verbal— lectures,
readings, discussions?
3) How is the presentation organised:
inductively— phenomena leading to
principles, or deductively— principles
leading to phenomena?
4) What mode of student participation is
facilitated by the presentation: active—
students talk, move, reflect, or passive—
students watch and listen?
5) What type of perspective is provided on the
information presented: sequential—step-
by-step progression (the trees), or global—
context and relevance (the forest)?
Teaching Techniques to Address All
Learning Styles
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Motivational learning. As much as possible,
relate the material being presented to what
has come before and what is still to come
in the same course and to material in other
courses, and particularly to the students’
personal experience (inductive/global).
Provide a balance of concrete information
(fact s, data, real or hypothetical
experiments and their results) (sensing)
and abstract concepts (principles, theories,
mathematical models) (intuitive).
Balance material that emphasizes practical
problem-solving methods (sensing/a ctive)
with material that emphasizes fundamental
understanding (intuitive/reflective).
Provide explicit illustrations of intuitive
patterns (logical inference, pattern
recognition, generalization) and sensing
patterns (observation of surroundings,
empirical experimentation, attention to
detail), and encourage all students to
exercise both patterns (sensing/intuitive).
Do not expect either group to be able
to exercise the other group’s processes
immediately.
Follow the scientific method in presenting
theoretical material. Provide concrete
examples of the phenomena the theory
describes or predicts (sensing/ inductive);
then develop the theory or formulate the