Developing Student Capability to “Generate and Evaluate”

During tutor training on the 10th April 2017, a brainstorming exercise was undertaken to identify key
personal attributes required for each phase of the Optimising Problem Solving pentagon. Tutors agreed
individuals were more likely to effectively execute the Generate and Evaluate phase of OPS when they
possess the following three attributes:

• Creativity
• Insightfulness
• Personal Investment

If Professional Practice can better facilitate development of these key attributes, the ability for students
to effectively “Generate and Evaluate” should improve. By considering their effect on the “Generate
and Evaluate” phase, methods were designed to facilitate the core thinking processes that make these
attributes beneficial in an engineering context. As the DGPP schedule is already quite full, an emphasis
was placed on modifying existing activities rather than introduction of new, standalone tasks. The
recommendations are:

• A Return Brief, as detailed in Swinburne’s project, should be incorporated into the literature
review task to improve student insight.

• Meeting minutes should be linked to Gantt Charts in a given template to create accountability
within groups and boost personal investment.

• Student Groups should present to a panel of tutors at critical stages of the project. These
interviews could be used to prompt further thinking, give guidance and highlight significance
of student findings.

• Relevance of assessment tasks to industry needs, real world engineering skills should be
rigorously outlined by tutors wherever possible. Students value authentic assessments.

• Credibility of the DGPP message should be reaffirmed using guest lecturers from industry.

• An in class activity based on “Force Fit” should be adopted that focuses on drawing inspiration
from diverse knowledge fields to solve an engineering problem. This task is designed to tie in
with Dominic’s Creativity lecture.

• Simple task reflecting on MBTI should be given at completion of major project to help
students become aware of their own thinking and internal biases.

Justifications and the finer details of these recommendations are outlined on the following pages.












Defining Attributes and their Importance to “Generate and Evaluate”

At this stage of problem solving, the individual has already gathered information to aid their
understanding. Before generation of concepts can be carried out effectively, the individual must
develop an insight from gathered information; a deep and accurate understanding of the problem and
its facets. Insightfulness could be characterized by the ability to see “the big picture”, to understand
the problems context, identify the core issue, appreciate why it is an issue, why it needs to be fixed, and
to define project outcomes and measures of success.

Fostering insight in first year students is important to shift from the high school mindset of addressing
a strictly defined question and marking scheme, to recognizing problems and setting their own bounds
and measures of success by considering the world around them. During evaluation of concepts, insight
is leaned on to assess suitability of ideas against the constraints and specifications of the problem. To
deliver quality solutions and become great engineers, students must eventually be capable of
developing this insight into new problems without external motivation.

The need for self-motivation and drive to produce quality work could be aided by instilling a sense of
personal investment in students toward their role as engineers in society and their assessment tasks.
Personal Investment is the combination of an active interest, a sense of responsibility and desire to see
a successful outcome. The attribute is included in “Generate and Evaluate” as it is most likely to develop
in this phase after individuals have a clear insight, understand impact of the problem and realise they
have the skills to provide a solution. Personal Investment is important to motivate student engagement
during the course and to encourage continuous personal development in their role as engineers.

Having amassed a wealth of relevant information and developed a clear insight into the problem, the
individual is now in a position to generate ideas, not necessarily full solutions but a range of thoughts
and ideas that explore different ways to address the problem. Generation of new ideas and concepts
from existing information requires creativity. Creativity is the ability to make, invent or produce new
ideas from information rather than reproduction of those already existing. Innovation is the successful
implementation of creativity, therefore creativity and innovation in engineering are inexorably linked.

While innovation is not necessary in every application, it is becoming increasingly important in
Australian engineering. CSIRO’s Strategy 2020 demands an emphasis on innovation and agility to
differentiate Australian industry from competition on the world stage. Increased focus on instilling
creativity in first year could help prepare the student body for employment in the changing engineering
industry.

Existing Attribute Development Methods and Justification of Improvements

Reflecting on my own experience during Communications, I attempted to identify the activities and
assessments that were most beneficial to my own development in these areas. I want to build upon
these strengths of the course with evolutionary tweaks. While these skills have been identified under
“Generate and Evaluate”, activities designed to facilitate them do not have to be constrained within
this phase.

Insight

During my experience as a tutor it appears most students also developed a deep understanding of their
projects setting. Humanitarian based projects appear well suited for encouraging student insight. It
introduces the importance of human centered design and provides a rich context for students to explore
societal and environmental significance of engineering problems. Projects such as the Syrian Refugee
Bed places particular emphasis on the need to search for insight as it takes place in a context students
are unfamiliar with.

This is one area where the proposed Electricity Storage project presents a problem. While its familiarity
and relevance to students would likely increase their personal investment, it reduces the need for
students to develop their own insight. Are we are aiming to start a project with student insight, or teach
students to develop their own?

Two activities stand out in my memory as particularly effective for developing insight. The Cornell Note
Taking exercise requires students to identify main ideas in the text, note related key ideas, thoughts
and information before summarizing. When the given article features background information of their
problem, this method helps students strip away their problem to its core, to note its context, identify
core issues and understand their significance. The foundations for student insight are laid down by this
exercise.

The literature review assessment requires students to pull together their understanding to detail key
findings relevant to their problems context. A good literature review requires a good understanding,
otherwise its information will be irrelevant. Together these activities address insight development well,
however don’t require students to define project outcomes and measures of success.

Defined Outcomes

The Global Design project from Swinburne addresses this shortcoming with their “Return Brief”. It
requires students to “outline exactly what you will intend to design by matching your research
conclusions to precise design objectives”. This takes place after literature review, prompting students
to clearly define project outcomes before generating the concepts to do so. This addition could tie in
well with the proposed student-tutor interviews. Students could present their Return Brief as though
tutors were project stakeholders. In my opinion it would round out DGPP’s approach to promoting the
student insight required to “Generate and Evaluate”.

Personal Investment

Recalling my own experience and listening to my peers opinions of Communications, there is great need
to facilitate a sense of personal investment in students toward both the major project and their own
learning. I haven’t spent long refining my thoughts about this, and my analysis may be a little crude
however there appears to be two levels of personal investment needing attention:

1. A shallow, short term personal investment toward the assessment task, tutors, team members and
grades. Identified by active engagement in the course.

2. A deeper long term personal investment toward importance of the Comms course and its principles.
Identified by increased introspection and commitment to continuous personal development.

In its current form, the major project allows some students to avoid engagement and ride on the coat
tails of other members. This happens when students aren’t personally invested in the course. It appears
the current vehicles for short term investment include personal engagement with tutors, responsibility
toward grades, social responsibility toward group members and the emotional appeal of a humanitarian
project. However, these vehicles may be ineffective on less socially adept, less empathetic students.
Therefore, short term personal investment may be improved by creating explicit academic
accountability rather than implied social accountability within project groups.



Explicit Accountability

To build explicit accountability, I recommend linking Gantt Charts and Meeting Minutes. A meeting
minutes’ template could be given including a section titled Gantt Chart Action Items. Each meeting the
group could propose action items to be completed and signed off at the next meeting. This would help
keep groups on track according to their Gantt chart, add explicit accountability within the group and
emphasize importance of keeping minutes in project management. Tutors could then check meeting
minutes during SGDE, presenting more opportunities for group members to address workload
inequality with the backing of tutoring staff. This could prompt engagement of laggard group members
and improve perception of the course in students who would otherwise be overworked.

Introduction of student-tutor interviews could provide additional incentive for all group members to be
“up to speed”. If students know they must present before a panel of tutors and be ready to answer
questions, it is less likely they will stay disengaged and attempt to fly under the radar. Interviews could
also be used to prompt further thinking, provide gentle guidance and encourage students by
highlighting or reaffirming the significance of their findings and ideas. This should nudge students
toward developing a sense of personal investment, particularly if combined with the Return Brief
activity. Its at this point individuals may be most susceptible to developing a sense of personal
responsibility and investment in their project. This presents an important opportunity for DGPP to
capitalize on, as student engagement could be improved by nudging students toward developing this
personal investment.

Meaningful, Authentic Assessment

The main barrier preventing students from long term personal investment is an inability to see the
relevance of tasks to their future as engineers. This sentiment has been expressed time and time again
by peers when questioned on their thoughts toward the course. During Communications they didn’t
see its relevance, didn’t realise its learning objectives and weren’t engaged as a result. Only when faced
with Warman and Sustainability & the Environment assignments did the subjects importance become
apparent in hindsight. Regardless if it seems like a fair criticism, this is honest feedback received from
typical students and should be addressed. For this reason, the authenticity of assessment tasks and
their relevance to real world engineering should be rigorously outlined wherever possible.

At every opportunity, tutors should convey relevance of assessment tasks by making connections to
existing engineering solutions, industry requirements, subjects in subsequent years and personal
experience. If possible, existing in class activities should be tweaked to reference their analogues in
engineering. Too often, students are found questioning or doubting “but this isn’t what happens in
industry”. Ideally the relevance of communications skills and assessment tasks would be made so clear
that doubt is addressed before it even has a chance to arise in the average student. This is where I
believe the name change from Communications is a master stroke. Before the course starts, students
are aware it is designed to teach them what is needed in the real world, in the workforce, in industry.
It is Professional Practice.

Credibility of Instruction

The real world applications of skills taught in the course should be emphasized by guest lecturers from
industry. As tutors are fellow students and often haven’t completed work experience, first years may
perceive they lack credibility when talking about “what happens in industry”. A lecture from an industry
representative is useful to reinforce credibility of the DGPP message. Where possible, references
should be made to industry literature that states the importance of design and communication skills. A
good example may be Manufacturing Skills Australia’s “Manufacturing 2030: Symposium Stimulus”
where a figure (Fig 4, pg.19) from CSIRO identifies Design, Collaborative Skills and Computer Proficiency
as dominant functional requirements for Australia’s future manufacturing industry. Show students the
skills industry wants, show them DGPP is here to help.
Without relevance to industry being made clear, the course and its tutors may appear dogmatic,
conflicting with the natural tendency for pragmatism in engineering students.

Creativity

The importance of creativity in engineering was quite well outlined by Dominic Burnet in his 2016
lecture. Dominic defined creativity as the ability to “leverage diverse competencies to produce unique
solutions” and recommended students “Be Open” to their surroundings, to read as much as possible,
listen to the news, to take mental notes of the way things are done.

Be Open

Do not be closed off to the world around, lessons are everywhere. This is the primary angle I believe
we should approach creativity in DGPP; encouraging students to take notice of the world around them
to develop a diverse wealth of general knowledge. Diverse knowledge is leveraged by lateral thinking
into a solution. This process is creativity.

I find some of my peers are severely limited in the “Generate” phase due to a lack of general knowledge.
When it comes to brainstorming concepts, they don’t know where to start. Ideas produced are
unencumbered by the bounds of reality and practicality. Those who don’t suffer from this problem
intuitively understand where a reasonable starting point would be. I believe this intuition, what some
may call “the knack”, stems from a diverse general knowledge. This knowledge base provides a general
context that defines the bounds of a reasonable, practical concept or action. To increase creativity and
intuition in students, a diverse general knowledge is required.

But Why?

However, general knowledge can’t easily be taught, it is a product of inquisitiveness. DGPP must aim to
give students the desire to ask “But why is it that way?” about everything they encounter in life. This
ties in with a quote from Albert Szent-Gyorgi: “Research is to see what everybody has seen and think
what nobody has thought”. This is what Engineers need to do in society. They need to notice
opportunity to improve where others don’t. Engineers work in industry identifying opportunities,
inefficiencies, wastages or dangers that others are blind to. Students need to start questioning the world
around them so they can think what others don’t when faced with engineering problems.

For these reasons, Dominic’s lecture should be backed up by a creative activity in the vein of “Force Fit”.
The task needs be formative, based on questioning and brainstorming to let student imaginations go
wild and promote thinking outside the confines of university engineering courses. The existing “Force
Fit” activity consists of:

1: Give students a range of objects
2: Ask students to brainstorm “How could these objects be applied in engineering?”

It’s a simple activity that already works well to prompt lateral thinking. It exercises existing general
knowledge to force fit items on an application in engineering. The introduction of lateral thinking is
handled by this activity.

To round out Creativity in DGPP I propose an activity, “But Why?”, that requires students to question
and take ideas from daily observations. Students would be given examples of real world engineering
and asked to explain why it may be designed the way it is. They aren’t expected to get it right, there is
no wrong answer when brainstorming, it could be a good reason why. The real reason is then given,
ideally eliciting an “aha” reaction. Students are then asked to brainstorm application of this solution in
engineering.

Most examples used should be elegant solutions in commonly known objects that get overlooked. Such
examples could confront students with their ability to overlook engineering in everyday life. Examples
of poor engineering decisions should be included, because sometimes there is no good reason why and
engineers have to identify that. The general structure would be:

1. Give students an object or an image of it
2. Ask students to brainstorm “Why do you think it may be designed that way?”
3. Tell students the reason the engineering principle behind its design.
4. Ask students to brainstorm “Where else could this principle be applied?”

The activity could be adapted to introduce Biomimicry or the ‘slipping’ of solution principles from a non-
engineering field to application in an engineering problem. The activity could be called “Slip Fit”. Rather
than brainstorming again in 4, students are given a seemingly unrelated engineering problem that could
be solved by use of the principle. It gently guides students into seeking inspiration from non-engineering
fields. Questions 1-3 would be followed by:

4b. Pose an engineering question that should be answered using the principle outlined. (Slip Fit Only)
5b. Show use of principle in real engineering example. (Slip Fit Only)

Transition from 3 to 4b would require lateral thinking while 5b addresses student desire for authenticity
in assessment tasks. Show students the example is real and its relevant. Strict adherence to the outlined
structure is not necessary and order can be rearranged. “But Why?” can include any task that prompts
students to question existing objects, identify its engineering principles and apply those principles to
solve another authentic problem.


Example Activity 1 – Torpedo Penguins

1.Students would be shown an image or video of Emperor
Penguins swimming underwater. When the penguins
need to swim fast, they begin leaving the very noticeable
trail of bubbles seen in Figure 1.

2. “Why do you think penguins may do this?”

3.Emperor Penguin releases bubbles from its feathers to
reduce density and viscosity of surrounding water. This
reduces hydrodynamic drag allowing a 2-3x increase in
speed.

4.Give question:

“You are tasked with designing a new high speed torpedo
for the Navy. The torpedo is to be rocket powered,
propelled by the expulsion of exhaust gasses. Current
Figure 1. Emperor Penguin Bubble Trails
designs are falling short of the required 370kph maximum
speed. How might you increase top speed of the torpedo?”


5.Show real world application in the Russian VA-111 Shkval Torpedo. The Shkval redirects rocket
exhaust gases to the tip of the torpedo. This forms an air bubble around its body, reducing drag and
allowing a top speed of 370kph. This is the same basic principle as the Emperor Penguin.

 Figure 2: Shkval Torpedo with cavitating tip that ejects exhaust gas


Example Activity 2 – Drink Bottle Resonance

1.Give group of students an empty soft drink bottle, instruct one member to blow across the open top.

2.Ask students what they have observed. The bottle will hum.

3.Tell students the sound is produced due to Helmholtz resonance. Air blowing across the top of a bottle
causes a resonance in the air within the bottle. Give students an image of wavelengths deconstructively
interfering to imply possible application of this principle.

4.Give Question:
“You work for an automobile company that has recently released a new model. Owners are reporting a
loud drone from the engines exhaust pipe when cruising at a constant speed. You are tasked with
altering the exhaust design to remove this drone. How could you achieve this?”

5.After brainstorming, show students an image of Helmholtz Resonators on the exhaust of a passenger
car. Helmholtz resonators are widely employed in engineering to smooth out gas flow by cancelling out
resonance. A good example is the rear muffler setup on the BMW M3. It uses the same principle as
blowing across the top of the drink bottle.

Figure 3: BMW M3 Rear Muffler


Example Activity 3 – Bomber Armour

This question could be used on groups that consider DGPP to be common sense. The counter intuitive
nature of the answer highlights the danger with blindly relying on “common sense”.

1 Background: You work for a military aerospace company tasked with adding armour to an existing
bomber aircraft. Operators of this aircraft are taking heavy losses from enemy anti-aircraft fire. 30% of
aircraft not returning to base after sorties.

Returning planes are found to have taken heavy fire along the wings, around the tail gunner and down
the centre of the aircrafts body. Bullet holes are often riddled through nose cone. Many planes have
severely damaged and even missing tail sections. In most inspected planes, the bomb bay, cockpit,
ailerons and engine covers appear to have avoided enemy fire.

You're tasked with adding armour to improve the aeroplanes resistance to enemy fire and increase the
percentage of aircraft returning to base.

2 Brainstorm: Where should you prioritise placement of the armour and why?

3 Principle: It may seem counter intuitive but armour should be added on the undamaged sections of
the aircraft. It is important to consider the context of the information given. The planes examined are
those returning home, therefore the planes were able to fly home with the damage observed.
Therefore, these areas aren’t critical for the plane to return home and require armouring the least. The
undamaged sections of the aircraft should be armoured as planes are only returning to base when these
areas avoid fire.

5 Real World Connection: This question is based on a real issue faced by the US Bomber Command in
World War II. Military leaders believed armour should be applied to routinely damaged sections of
returning aircraft. Statistician Abraham Wald identified the problem with this thinking and
recommended armour be placed on undamaged sections.

Thoughts on MBTI

Use of MBTI in DGPP may be helpful for students to develop an awareness of their own thinking patterns
and identify effect of bias due to personality in their work. This bias should be considered just as
systematic error is considered in scientific experiments. For continuous personal development to occur,
it may be important for individuals to identify and attempt to address these internal biases. This is
where I believe MBTI ties in with Long Term Personal Investment. That said, MBTI seemed to be a
polarizing inclusion in the Communications course among my peers. Careful consideration should be
given to how prominently it features in the course, it can be a stumbling block for some.

Recently I read about characteristics of my INFJ personality type type and found all of it unnervingly
accurate. Reading the words “INFJs are private individuals who prefer to exercise their influence behind
the scenes” instantly reminded me of my unwillingness to volunteer for the role of senior tutor and my
tendency to lead from behind in group work.

During the brainstorming session for “Generate and Evaluate” I wrote down Creativity and Insight as
important attributes. I didn’t remember at the time, however Creativity and Insight are the top two
characteristics of my INFJ personality type. This means I am likely to place an emphasis on the
importance of these skills. Now I am aware of my own biases, I can take steps to overcome them and
ensure they don’t limit my usefulness as a tutor. These experiences have largely formed my opinion on
MBTI.

I began thinking what may have helped me make this connection in first year rather than third. The task
may already exist and I simply forgot. However, my thoughts are as follows:

Early in the course, the MBTI test could be set as homework. Then students could read about their
characteristics during SGDE to prompt discussion between group members about their personality
types as a social icebreaker.

Up until this point in students education, it is likely focus has been on individual rote learning where
interaction of personality types has a less identifiable effect on work outcomes. They may have no
experience of situations to fit this new information to and may fail to understand its importance. For
this reason, I think MBTI would be most useful to students if it was employed during reflection, after
completion of the project. This way, students are considering MBTI just after completing a group project
where the interaction of personality types may have had an impact on their work for the first time.

A final, individual task could be set that prompts students to reflect on their own behavior during the
project and compare to their personality type characteristics. For example, the task could ask:

“Did your interaction with your group during the project reflect that expected by your MBTI type? If so,
how? if not, how did it differ?”

I believe this sets up the best conditions to deliver a realisation similar to my own. Although students
are aware of their own personality type, they may be unable to recognize its impact during the project.

When reflecting on their experiences, they may realise their behavior was predicted all along by their
personality type, an almost confronting experience that brings a consciousness of their own thinking
tendencies. Ideally, this would set the foundation for students to leave DGPP aware of their own
thinking and the personality traits that require attention for continuous personal development. That
said, INFJs have a tendency to be overly idealistic, so consider these thoughts with a few grains of salt.