Following a particularly challenging test during my undergraduate mechanical design course, I found myself left with half-credit on the biggest problem on the test. Being a strongheaded, bullish undergrad, I went to my professor’s office hours and fervently argued my case to reclaim some credit. As my professor reviewed my exam, he stopped and circled a figure in my calculation, held it up to me and said, “See what you did there?”
Looking at the mark, I instantly recognized my mistake, sighed, and recalled his favorite catch phrase: “I crashed into Mars?”
To which he grinned and chuckled, “Yup. Crashed right into Mars.”
This professor had a fondness for recalling an infamous engineering failure where an unmanned space craft crashed into Mars because two teams of engineers working on the craft were conducting their force calculations using different systems of measurement (one group used Newtons, the other used Pounds). Indeed, I had plugged in the gravitational constant for SI units, while the rest of the problem used Imperial. Fortunately for me, I was not responsible for a one-hundred-million-dollar spacecraft, nor any potential lives that might pilot such a craft. I was only taking an exam. Though I did recover some points of credit as my professor recognized that my work was otherwise accurate, I have not since approached a calculation without a faint echo in the back of my head, reminding me not to crash into Mars.
What this professor instilled in me was the recognition of the profound responsibility that engineers have as creators of future technologies. In the coming years, engineers will cure diseases once thought incurable, protect society from unforeseen pandemics, and produce innovations that fend off the impending threat of climate change. It is imperative that we teach our students to approach these problems confidently with the analytical scientific skills that they will develop in their core courses, but also with thoughtfulness and humility, recognizing the weight of the problems that they face and the potential cost that failure could lead to.
As teachers in the modern world, we must contend with the fact that our students have access to as much information through their cell phones as could be contained in a warehouse full of engineering textbooks. Therefore, it is essential to teach students more than just facts in our classes; we should seek to teach them skills. Engineers require the analytical skills to systematically approach novel scientific problems as well as communication skills to pass along their knowledge and expertise to others. My teaching philosophy is grounded in the recognition that these skills are essential for allowing my students to excel as scientists, as engineers, and as globally minded people. In my practice as a teacher, I will develop these skills by emphasizing (1) a detail-oriented approach to the engineering design process, (2) a course design that reflects the novel and adaptive nature of real-world engineering challenges, and (3) detailed, targeted feedback, which allows students to reflect on failures as opportunities for learning and growth.
To help students learn to thoughtfully approach engineering problems, we must teach in a manner that clearly articulates the systematic nature of engineering problem solving. I will accomplish this through the development of highly structured course content that emphasizes active learning. Strategies that actively engage students have been shown to improve class performance among all learners and help close the achievement gap faced by underrepresented minorities in STEM fields (Haak et al. Science 2011; Theobald et al. PNAS 2020). In my courses, this will occur through the incorporation of low-stakes, graded practice exam problems at regular intervals throughout the course; highly detailed rubrics that prioritize credit for students’ articulation of their problem-solving process; and regular, formative assessment of student progress through polling and minute papers. Each of these tools gives students valuable practice and allows them regular opportunities for reflection and improvement so that they do not fall behind. Crucially, this also will enable me to closely monitor students’ understanding of course material, adjust instruction as needed, and provide feedback as the course progresses.
The role of detailed, targeted feedback will be substantial in my teaching, as it is essential for helping students to recognize the gap between their understanding and the desired course outcomes. This is a process through which I closely assess the individual learning needs of students and empower learners to reflect on their own work, recognize successes and mistakes, and identify next steps for improvement. With respect to the first point, I believe strongly in giving students plenty of opportunities to meet individually during office hours and encouraging them to contact me directly regarding any difficulties they face in the course. To empower students to think critically on their own work, I aim to include frequent opportunities for partial credit on detailed homework and quiz revisions. Awarding partial credit, coupled with opportunities to correct and resubmit work, maximizes student engagement with their own work and helps those students internalize how they can improve upon prior misunderstandings. This reflects my belief that all students should be capable of succeeding in my courses. Partial credit is not a means for simply averting failure, it is an intentional design element in courses which can improve comprehension for students who may learn at different rates.
Engineering students greatly benefit from design challenges which closely reflect the interdisciplinary nature of novel, real-world engineering problems. In my prior teaching experiences, I have tried to incorporate these types of problems wherever possible. For example, I created a realistic design challenge for adolescent students taking an online Introduction to Biomedical Engineering course. This challenge—part of a lesson on “Design Principles for Drug Delivery”—involved a case study which called for students to recommend changes to the mode of drug delivery for a patient whose medical complications prevented the uptake of essential medications. Students would brainstorm alternative delivery strategies in groups, explain their rationale, and then observe how their choices reflected how doctors acted in the real case, and how the patient’s condition continued to evolve as a result. This was one of my most successful classes in this course, as students became emotionally involved in trying to save the patient and were forced to think creatively about how to apply their knowledge of fundamental drug delivery principles. These are all elements that I think can play a substantial role in any biomedical engineering course, as these simulated real-world problems require students to adapt their skillsets to unfamiliar environments and allow them to learn inductively, as they see how the application of their skills function in a novel scientific situation. By gaining practice with these types of problems, students will be better prepared to translate their proficiency in fundamental scientific knowledge into efficient, creative engineering solutions in the workplace.