Interdisciplinary education at Carnegie Mellon Engineering and Public Policy April 24, 2013 Indira Nair Professor Emeritus

Engineering & Public Policy - Evolution Started 1970 as program in Engineering & Public Affairs - undergraduate major and second major for engineering students Became Department, EPP in 1974; start of graduate program Situated in the engineering college (important) Research-oriented PhD program, MS program in E&TIM, and double major undergrad program with other majors in engineering or CS

Curriculum and courses Students (grad and undergrad) take engineering AND social science Committees and advisors – multiple EPP Project course (engineering) : = Physical-Technical Systems (PA) = Policy Analysis III (Soc & Dec Sciences) Structure unstructured problems in unsolved question, faculty from 2 disciplines, graduate student manager

EPP = Engineers with a Difference “…addresses important problems in technology and policy in which the technical details are of central importance.” Distinguished from STS programs Important institutional features: ethos of university, culture of research collaboration, support from top – Dean through President First in the U.S. ( MIT, Stanford most similar)

Institutional environment and Origin of Program CMU philosophy of education and research – “real-world” problem-centered rather than discipline-centered 1970, Professor Williams, head of Electrical Engineering – engineers also trained to deal with societal issues related to technology – translators and communicators First co-Heads: profs in Mat Sci, Public Policy 1974: Granger Morgan

Interdisciplinary, collaborative environment vital to success CMU rooted in real world problems and educating students to act in the world, “make things” Courage and impeccable credentials in leaders: Dean Toor (ChE), Co-heads, Robert Dunlap (Mat Scientist) and Gordon Lewis (Math. Anthropologist), Granger Morgan ( Physics, history, systems engineering) Willing to defend vision, individual AND organization

Research focus energy and environmental systems information and communication technology policy risk analysis and communication; and technical innovation and R&D policy. Across these :study issues in engineered systems and domestic security, issues in technology and organizations and issues in technology and economic development. Develop new software tools for the support of policy analysis and research.

Institutional enabling Innovation in organizational framework: joint appointments ( tenured), interdepartmental proposals, decentralized decision making. Pioneering spirit: Herbert Simon, Allan Newell (AI), GSIA, SUPA innovation encouraged: ETC (Drama and CS), CNBC ( Biology, psychology, computer science, philosophy, statistics), Studio for Creative Inquiry ( Art, CS, architecture, design), Music engineering …

Challenges From traditionalists : Can you be specialized in more than one field? Employers (pre-1982) : does learning social science take away from engineering skills? This turned around as engineering education was re-thought nationally ; students learned to communicate, EPP project reports valued Repeated need to explain to the world— less and less.

Learning… “meaning making”: To learn something means to acquire knowledge, skills, or dispositions that enable the learner to act, think, and feel in ways that are recognized as important by oneself or others. (Novak) “The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly” --(Ausubel, 1968, Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View, p. vi) Mental models and use of concept mapping can help, in formative and summative assessment Local ==> global in problem solving; but global => local in problem definition?

Disciplines… Set of commitments, ways of investigating, language and representation; Choice of a class of and perspectives on: issues, knowledge and application Point out to students when appropriate Discipline: category designed for “focus”, “depth”, “cognitive economy”: specialization Appropriate for learning???

Discipline – Defining and communicating its core Making “habits” and foundations (limits too!) of knowledge explicit (in context) Sort: Core from peripheral Help students sort – know what they know – misconceptions? “knowledge and methods distillation” – also useful in student’s exploration, and choice of discipline

Interdisciplinary T&L: Pedagogical Details Empowerment— for lifelong learning – our first learning was integrative – “problems and decisions” Connect with models they have already formed, to correct or confirm Ask student to go through stages of generalization, prediction etc according to disciplinary norms “Creating lifelong learners requires instruction to esnure that students have a generative understanding and an inclination tot progressively refine their idea” “complexify” models in stages Strategy instruction with topic instruction

Interdisciplinary T&L: Pedagogical Details (2) Make “habits” and foundations (limits too!) of knowledge and disciplines explicit (in context) Sort: Core from peripheral Metacognition Help students sort – know what they know – misconceptions? “knowledge and methods distillation” – also useful in student’s exploration, and choice of discipline

Hourglass for Learning and Teaching 15

“Change” that lasts Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action and the Cultivation of Solidarity – Fernando Flores and Hubert Dreyfus History – making ==> Articulation Cross-appropriation Reconfiguration