Prof. Tammara Ramírez Apud L., Universidad de las Americas Puebla I am a research professor imparting university level complex thinking. My speciality is the design of learning environments based on troubleshooting for critical thinking development.
Dr. Judith Virginia Gutierrez CubaPhD. Science, Engineering and Technology Education. Postdoctoral Fellow at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Dr. Enrique Palou, Universidad de las Americas PueblaProfessor Palou is Director, Center for Science, Engineering, and Technology Education as well as Distinguished Professor and Past Chair, Department of Chemical, Food, and Environmental Engineering at Universidad de las Americas Puebla in Mexico. He teaches engineering, food science, and education related courses. His research interests include emerging technologies for food processing, creating effective learning environments, using tablet PCs and associated technologies to enhance the development of 21st century expertise in engineering students, and building rigorous research capacity in science, engineering and technology education. Argumentation is the means by which we rationally resolve questions, issues, and disputes and solve problems. An argument consists of a claim (solution) that is supported by principles (premises), evidence, and rebuttals against potential counterarguments. Fostering argumentation in problem-solving learning environments (PSLEs) promotes problem solving 2,3 . Therefore, we designed and implemented some PSLEs for several food engineering courses (from 1 st to 8 th semester) at Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP).Problems vary in different ways, so different kinds of problems call on different conceptions and skills [2][3][4] . Based on those differences among problems, different kinds of food engineering problems were developed such as decision-making, troubleshooting/diagnosis, and design problems. For seven PSLEs' assignments an Argumentation Rubric (adapted from Jonassen 2 ), was utilized to assess students' (n=81) argumentation skills, particularly adequacy of premises, credibility of premises, organization of arguments, quality of conclusions (claims), and writing (content/ideas). Four evaluators assessed student papers and videos. Furthermore, the most common method for assessing argumentation, protocol analysis of student essays or responses to questions, was performed by means of a qualitative data analysis software (Atlas.ti); identifying idea units within the essays or videos, and classifying those units with a coding scheme built from the Argumentation Rubric.In average, students from the eighth (18.7) and ninth (18.1), semester had higher scores (from a total of 20 points) in the Argumentation Rubric than students from the first semester (14.1), since their credibility of premises, organization of arguments, and writing were adequate for first-year students but could be further improved as further detected by protocol analyses. Therefore in subsequent semesters, specific argumentation scaffolds during problem solving ...
