EXTROVERT:
Learning
To Innovate Across
DisciplinesFOR
AC
2010-2255:
EXTROVERT:
SYSTEM
LEARNING ACROSS DISCIPLINES
Narayanan Komerath, Marilyn Smith
Georgia Institute of Technology
NASA Grant NNX09AF67G
Narayanan Komerath, Marilyn Smith, Brian German
Georgia Institute of Technology
Erian Armanios, U. Texas, Arlington
Dolores Krausche, Florida Center for Engineering Education
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
WELCOM
E
Skills
Library
DesignCentered
Introduction
McMahon Solutions
Library
Propulsion
Physics
Chemistry
Thermal
Sciences
Controls
System
Design
Advanced
Concepts
Case
Studies
Library
Composites
Elasticity
Strength
Materials
Space
Science
HighSpeed
Gasdynamics
LowSpeed
Fluids
Core Subject Knowledge
Engg.
Disciplines
Social
Sciences
Public Policy
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Project Objectives:
• Build resources for problem-solving across disciplines to develop new concepts.
• Acquire experience on how engineers perform in such learning.
Approach:
Enable learners to gain confidence with the process of solving problems,
-starting with their own preferred learning styles.
Ideas being implemented include:
•Design-centered portal to aerospace engineering
•Vertical streams of technical content
•Case Studies
•Library of solved problems
•Integrative concept modules
• Module-based assessment to measure learning in time to improve it.
This paper sets out the issues and builds the concept for dealing with them.
The first year’s progress and usage experience are summarized.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Why?
•Rapid change demands swift and confident movement across disciplines
to innovate advances
•Cross-functional teams require everyone to learn quickly and understand the
principles and methods of everyone else’s area of specialty.
•Extreme complexity and technological diversity of aerospace systems
•Breakthrough innovations come from experience in turning dreams to reality
•Perspective needed for innovations comes from far-away disciplines (breadth)
but is applied to solve intricate problems in a core discipline (depth)
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
6 Sample Categories Of Learners
• Experienced engineers in industry, and researchers
• University Faculty
• New graduates at NASA, DoD and industry centers
• Aerospace graduate students
• Upper-division undergraduates
• Non-engineering majors in aerospace project teams
• College freshmen
• K-12 students
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
How
• EXTROVERT builds on 12 year experience of the Aerospace Digital Library
collection of resources, expanding and refining the resources.
• Intuitive gateway to AE based on conceptual design of flight vehicle systems,
suited to learners at all levels.
• Allow any user to go up to the perspective of the general public, and down to
level of detail needed for R&D.
• Detailed sequential course notes, linked across disciplines.
• Worked Examples, Concept Development examples, Case Studies
• Continuous, modular learning assessment, focused on learning.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Issues
• Adapting to evolving technology, knowledge resources & project needs
• Not practical to take a new course sequence for each project.
• Breadth vs. depth
• Different learning styles become critical to motivation, especially when
learning happens outside a formal course.
• Innovations come from all quarters, but require academic depth and breadth
to understand and refine.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Assessment
Why? Discover how students are learning and using the resources we develop,
and how to adapt the resources to improve learning. Measure effectiveness of
given resources and strategies for transferable products. Obtain peer-review for
final products.
Present course evaluation process
EXTROVERT approach
Focused on instructor popularity
Focus on learning effectiveness
Anonymous survey devalues thinking
Learners asked to participate as team members; open-ended
questions seek new thinking
Web-based surveys eliminate need for repetitive signatures
and disclaimers; reduce overhead
Adopt web-based survey creation resources accepted in assessment
community
Low participation
Integrate survey into modules throughout the course. End-of course
results derived from learner evolution through the semester
Customer Service focus weighted towards complaints.
Drives to minimum change/surprise
Encourage initiative, recognize value of dealing with innovative
thinking.
Focus on popularity discourages excellence
Reward excellence in learner value addition
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/extrovert/
Design Centered Introduction To Aerospace Engineering
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•
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Designing a Flight Vehicle: Road Map
Force Balance During Flight
Earth's Atmosphere
Aerodynamics
Propulsion
Performance
Stability and control
Structures and Materials
High Speed Flight
Space Flight
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/extrovert/
Core Subject Knowledge
Statics
Dynamics
Thermodynamics
Fluid mechanics& Low Speed
Aerodynamics
Gas dynamics& High Speed
Aerodynamics
Propulsion & Power
Composite Materials
Aerostructures
Aeroelasticity
Controls
System Design
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/extrovert/
Skills Library Examples
•
Aerodynamics Codes
•
Atmosphere Calculator
•
Unit Converter
•
Aviation Weather Forecast
•
Periodic Table
•
Shock-Expansion Tool
•
Materials Properties
•
Wolfram Mathematica Online Solver
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
http://www.adl.gatech.edu/research/extrovert/
McMahon Solutions Library
Library of solved example problems and applications to guide learners.
Built from the core of solutions published by permission from the estate of
Georgia Tech’s Professor Emeritus Howard McMahon.
Enables learners to navigate worked examples at a wide variety of skill levels in
these core areas. Now that a basic structure is in place and is being utilized in
academic courses and PhD Qualifying Exam preparation, these resources will
be expanded to other disciplinary content across the aerospace curriculum.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Case Studies of Innovations Used as Course Study Projects
•C-5 Military Cargo Transport Aircraft
• SR-71
• ??
For students: Design-Build-Fly case study
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Serve Diverse Learning Styles* of Innovators
(*Everyone has some of each trait somewhere within!)
• “Rocket Scientist”:
Succinct core content in aerospace disciplines with uncompromising
tie-back to the laws of physics and mathematics followed by demonstrations
“Astronaut”:
Detailed worked examples including demonstrations, data, procedures.
•
“Eagle”:
Case studies with access to concept modules, demos, results
•
“Barnstormer”:
Advanced concept development examples with instant
resources across many disciplines to illustrate and define.
•
access
to
visual
“Designer”:
Advanced concept development examples with access to data and standards
illustrated via case studies and detailed worked examples.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Case Study: SR 71 Performance Prediction by Brian German’s AE3310 class)
“The wisdom (?) of crowds !!!”
Presented at the
2010 ASEE Annual Conference & Exhibition
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Assessment Prototype: High Speed Aerodynamics
http://www.surveymonkey.com
2. Free-form comment
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
CASE STUDY: COMPOSITE MISSILE WING DESIGN
COMPOSITE SANDWICH WING COMPONENTS
FINITE ELEMENT MODEL
Core
Aluminum root
Facing
Shell elements Solid elements
Displacement in Z direction
Stress in the external layer
TEST SETUP
Transverse shear in the core
Dial -gage
Clamped plate
3-D Modeling
Wing
Load cell
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
DISCUSSION
Postulate: Learning and innovating across disciplines is substantially self-driven.
Requires initiative, confidence and persistence.
Hypothesis: Enabling people to learn on their own terms will enhance and
sustain such initiative and confidence.
Basic pedagogical question: “How should learners seek and grasp the
fundamentals of new disciplines, and how to use them appropriately to solve
problems?”
Cross-disciplinary learning is considered at 3 basic levels:
• At the freshman level: Everyone is a freshman when trying to “learn the
ropes” of a new discipline. Emphasis on the “culture”, and building confidence in
making estimates using laws of Nature, common sense and benchmarking.
• Senior undergraduate / new engineer level: learn to work in multidisciplinary
project teams, synergizing and building off the work of others.
• PhD student/ faculty / senior practitioner level: Focus on depth, while
obtaining perspective and learning the essentials quickly.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Is technological change really more rapid today than, say, in 1940 or 1960?
Are today’s engineers able to deal with concept innovation better?
Aerospace engineering requires depth of understanding.
Engineering curricula are designed on the reasoning that a firm foundation in
basic disciplines gives the graduate a lifetime to gain breadth.
The intense, demanding and rigorous college experience also instills
confidence and persistence to approach tough problems.
Traditional curriculum with linear course sequences coming together in senioryear “capstone” design experiences, was appropriate for Cold War era, largecompany recruiting that emphasized corporate training after school.
Small-team requires better comprehension levels, experience and perspective
through research participation and other learning by iteration.
Depth and breadth compete for shrinking learning time.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
SUCCESSES – AND ISSUES ENCOUNTERED
Target is depth of understanding and breadth of capabilities: encounters stiff
resistance from “experienced” students who “know” what should be taught.
- freshmen complained about intense calculations and learning in 1st 6 weeks of
conceptual design assignment (short-range airliner), but then repeated those
calculations in 1 week (LH2 fuelled short-range airliner) and then did the
essential parts of the design as one of six questions on a 3-hour final.
-
Seniors in AE3021 had a good deal of trouble with the small conceptual design
part preceding supersonic airplane drag calculation. Concept of developing a
“figure of merit” for a given design from the ideal, was missed by most.
-
Graduate students in AE6020 (transonic and hypersonic aerodynamics) were in
deep trouble as the availability of “assumed” undergraduate knowledge and
examples made “thought” questions fair game on closed book tests; several then
did extremely well on take-home open-ended, integrative “final exam”. Some still
not “get” the idea that one was expected to deliver well-thought-out quantitative
answers, not just “suggestions”.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
CONCLUSIONS
Attempt to deal with the issues of learning across disciplines in order to turn
advanced concepts into reality.
It is founded on the core knowledge of aerospace science and engineering, but
Uses a Conceptual Design gateway to make this knowledge quickly accessible
and usable.
Intense effort to develop a library of worked examples is a key feature
in opening the knowledge base to different types of learners.
At this writing, the initial test website is up with a substantial amount of core
content, and a number of resource modules and case studies are being refined
and uploaded.
Results to-date show that we are “getting traction” and dealing with real issues.
Students are indeed doing much better than they could before - when they pay
attention to the new expectations and use the resources.
EXTROVERT: Learning To Innovate Across Disciplines
Assessment Prototype: High Speed Aerodynamics
http://www.surveymonkey.com