The Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia: Portaging Leadership Lessons with a Critical Thinking Model Rob Niewoehner, CAPT, USN, PhD Craig Steidle, RADM, USN (ret) Eric Johnson, ENS, USN U.S. Naval Academy

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Background: My Interest in Critical Thinking… Dismay Training Writing Guide published in 2007 w/ assistance from CDIO friends at CU, EPM, MIT and S.Africa CAIB paper in 2008

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary The paper Original paper can be found  reasoning.cfm reasoning.cfm  hts.cfm#Awards hts.cfm#Awards  Engineering Management Journal, March 2009 (adapted)

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Context Humanities Elective- “Technical Leadership” taught to 20 senior engineering students. Lead instructor was a retired admiral with experience as very large program manager, and Associate Administrator for NASA. Case study method with 3 weeks devoted to Columbia accident

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary “Portage”

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary The case study challenge… Portable Lessons “If foam ever falls from my spacecraft, I should…” or “Intellectual courage and humility are indispensable for high team performance.” or “Teams must constantly monitor the validity of their assumptions.”

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary “engineering instructors may… adopt a sink or swim mentality, teaching at a high level and forcing the students to either adapt or drop out, but a more promising approach is to include explicit mentoring in the ways of thinking being promoted.” Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent, The Intellectual Development of Science and Engineering Students, Part 1. Models and Challenges, Journal of Engineering Education, 93(4), pg (2004)

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary The Question(s) at Hand… General- How can we promote “ways of thinking” among our students such that they ask the rich questions we would typically expect of experts? Specific-  Does Richard Paul’s Critical Thinking model promote the “ways of thinking” we seek?  Does its vocabulary provide the portability we seek from complex case studies? (The “portage problem”)

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary What is your conception of Critical Thinking?

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Critical Thinking- a definition “ Critical Thinking is a deliberate meta-cognitive (thinking about thinking) and cognitive (thinking) act whereby a person reflects on the quality of the reasoning process simultaneously while reasoning to a conclusion. The thinker has two equally important goals: coming to a solution and improving the way she or he reasons.” Moore, David T. Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis, Joint Military Intelligence College, Occasional Paper 14, May 2006, pg. 2 [italics in original].

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Critical Thinking is… thinking about our thinking with the goal of improving our thinking a system-opening system a self-directed process by which we take deliberate steps to think well health monitoring for our thinking “Critical Thinking Assesses Itself”

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Paul’s Critical Thinking Model (ER, pg 5) Intellectual Humility Fairmindedness Intellectual Autonomy Confidence in Reason Intellectual Integrity Intellectual Empathy Intellectual CourageIntellectual Perseverance Intellectual Curiosity Intellectual Traits/Virtues PurposeQuestion at Hand Point of View Assumptions Data/InformationConcepts Inferences/ConclusionsImplications Elements of Thought Intellectual Standards ClarityPrecision Accuracy Significance RelevanceFairness LogicalDepth Breadth Concision SuitabilityBeauty to develop must be applied to

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Intellectual Standards ClarityUnderstandable, meaning can be grasped AccuracyFree from errors or distortions, true PrecisionExact to the necessary level of detail RelevanceRelating to the matter at hand SignificanceFocusing on the important, not trivial DepthConsidering complexities and interrelationships BreadthInvolving multiple viewpoints Logical ValidityThe parts make sense together FairnessNot self-serving (or egocentric) SuitabilityAppropriate for the audience ConcisionHigh intellectual density (substance/length) BeautyAesthetic appeal

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Whenever we think… We think for a purpose From within a point of view employing assumptions. leading to implications and conse - quences. We use data, facts, and experiences to make inferences and judgments based on concepts and theories attempting to answer a question. Elements of Thought (ER, pg 9)

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Intellectual Traits/Virtues Intellectual Autonomy Intellectual Humility Intellectual Integrity Intellectual Courage Intellectual Curiosity Intellectual Perseverance Fairmindedness Confidence in Reason Intellectual Empathy

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Prepping the class for the case study. Several of the students had seen the model in my classes. Many however were not Aerospace majors and had no prior contact with Paul’s model. Two workshop class sessions of 75 minutes were used to introduce the model.

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Intellectual Traits/Virtues Recall two personal stories  A story in which the obvious presence of one trait contributed positively to the performance of a team.  A story in which an obvious defect in one trait detracted from the performance of a team.

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Case Study: Columbia Accident Investigation Report (CAIB) The Accident clip, clip2clipclip2 The CAIB report. This is a masterpiece on organizational behavior of high technology teams.It is also a sad and occasionally maddening story.report Chapter 7 Extract, foam1, foam2Extractfoam1foam2 paper

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Exercise - The Elements of Thought “MMT”= Mission Management Team 1. What was the MMT’s evident purpose? 2. What question(s) did the MMT seek to answer? 3. What point of view(s) dominated the discussion? 4. What assumptions did the MMT make? 5. What significant information did the MMT (mis)handle? 6. What concepts are important? 7. What was the inferences are suggested? 8. What were the implications of this conclusion?

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Findings: Paul’s model provides a robust vocabulary for evaluating engineering team intellectual performance, characterizing both failures and successes. Students quickly gain facility with the model, and apply it with little overhead time.

June 2009 CAIB- Singapore Plenary Resources Original paper can be found  reasoning.cfm reasoning.cfm  hts.cfm#Awards hts.cfm#Awards  Engineering Management Journal, March 2009 (adapted) Engineering Reasoning guide available (~$2.5 USD)