Developing Judgment to Address Wicked Problems in Engineering
Developing Judgment to Address Wicked Problems in Engineering
April 7 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT
Aaron W. Johnson, SM ’10, PhD ’15, Assistant Professor, Aerospace Engineering & Core Faculty member of the Engineering Education Research Program, University of Michigan
Engineers constantly face “wicked problems,” ill-defined and complex sociotechnical problems with undefined and often-shifting constraints and requirements. Many students enter engineering to tackle these wicked problems in their future careers; however, the well-defined, closed-ended, and decontextualized problems prevalent in undergraduate engineering education do not allow students to develop the judgment and critical thinking needed to address them.
Dr. Aaron Johnson will discuss a method to help engineering students develop the judgment needed to address wicked problems. He will share design-based research that studies learning in the context of new educational interventions. Specifically, the talk will focus on his work designing group-based open-ended problems in engineering science courses and creating a related taxonomy of emerging engineering modeling judgment. This taxonomy outlines how engineering students make informed decisions when developing and using mathematical models to address open-ended problems in class and on student project teams. The talk will conclude with practical implications for engineering education, particularly as they relate to the ever-expanding availability and capability of generative AI, and future research directions.
About the Speaker
Aaron W. Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department and a Core Faculty member of the Engineering Education Research Program at the University of Michigan. He leads the SHUTTLE Lab, which conducts Studies of Holistic Understanding, Thinking, Teaching, and Learning in Engineering. The lab’s NSF-funded design-based research focuses on how to re-contextualize engineering science courses to better reflect and prepare students for the reality of ill-defined, sociotechnical engineering practice. Their current projects include studying and designing classroom interventions around macroethical issues in aerospace engineering and the productive beginnings of engineering judgment as students create and use mathematical models. Ph.D. students in the SHUTTLE Lab are also studying students’ perceptions of professional skills and the social-class worldview and experience of engineering students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Aaron holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to re-joining Michigan, he was an instructor in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
