Technological Literacy Classes: The State of the Art

Byars, Nan

doi:10.1002/j.2168-9830.1998.tb00322.x

Cited by 25 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Within the context of undergraduate education, we may utilize that definition proposed by Prof. Nan Byars of University of North Carolina-Charlotte in her admirable 1998 review`Technology Literacy: The State of the Art' which provides the following working definition [6]:…”

Section: Undergraduate Student Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching Technology Literacy: An Opportunity for Design Faculty?

Ollis

Krupczak

2006

Volume 4c: 3rd Symposium on International Design and Design Education

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The National Academy of Engineering, the National Science Foundation, and various prominent engineering faculty and administrators have pleaded over the last decade that technological literacy for non-technical majors is a topic which engineering faculty ought to provide. This paper explores the notion that design faculty are well qualified, perhaps uniquely so, to teach such courses for nontechnical majors, i.e., to represent engineering and technology to the non-technical campus population. Previously we reviewed the attributes of the various groups promoting technological literacy. We showed that engineering, with its balance between theory and practice, has a distinct and highly effective perspective on technology, making engineers uniquely qualified to explain technology to the non-engineer. Here we focus on engineering design faculty as those engineers most qualified to carry out this effort. Inasmuch as design instruction is universally present on the more than 300 campuses boasting an engineering school, and each engineering department has at least one design instructor, a potential teaching faculty in excess of 1000 is identified from which to recruit future technology literacy instructors. We make the case for this novel activity as a logical component of design instruction, and argue further that such novel participation will accomplish a second goal, long sought by design instructors, namely that their profession will have an increased, and more public, visibility and appreciation. Thus, creating a cadre of design instructors as teachers of technology literacy will assist a national need and at the same time will satisfy a professional goal.

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Section: Undergraduate Student Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, with only a slight stretch, we may claim that Technological Literacy is merely`Engineering Design Literacy' for the general university audience! Successful strategies for technological literacy courses (re-ordered from [6]…”

Section: Matching Design To Technological Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Technology Literacy: An Opportunity for Design Faculty?

Ollis

Krupczak

2006

Volume 4c: 3rd Symposium on International Design and Design Education

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“…8 At the undergraduate level, most science education courses for non-science majors do not discuss the societal implications of science, and there tend to be few offerings focused on technological literacy. 5 In a society that relies increasingly on the use of technology in healthcare, limited scientific literacy is cause for concern. The American Medical Association's Ad Hoc Committee on Health Literacy for the Council on Scientific Affairs 1 reports that ''patients with inadequate health literacy have a complex array of communications difficulties, which may interact to influence health outcome.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Translational Bioengineering Course Provides Substantial Gains in Civic Scientific Literacy

et al. 2007

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Abstract-A growing number of essential consumer choices and public policy issues require a basic level of scientific literacy. Recent studies suggest as many as three-quarters of adults are unable to read and understand news accounts of scientific advances and controversies. In response to this challenge, a new course for non-science majors, Bioengineering and World Health, was designed to improve biomedical literacy. The goal of this study was to compare scientific literacy of students enrolled in the course to that of two groups of students who had not taken the course; the first control group included students majoring in Biomedical Engineering (BME), the second included those majoring in Liberal Arts or Natural Sciences. Small group interviews in which students discussed science news accounts from the popular press were used to assess scientific literacy. Students in Bioengineering and World Health showed increasing scientific literacy throughout the course. At the conclusion of Bioengineering and World Health, the mean scientific literacy of students in the course was significantly higher than that in both control groups. Students were stratified by the number of semester credit hours completed in science, math, engineering and technology (SME&T) courses. Regardless of number of SME&T hours completed, the mean scientific literacy of students completing Bioengineering and World Health was equivalent to that of BME majors who had completed more than 60 semester credit hours of SME&T coursework, suggesting that a single introductory course can significantly influence scientific literacy as measured by participant's ability to discuss medical innovations from a common news source.

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“…Recently, an outline for organizing technology literacy courses appeared in the Journal of Engineering Education. 1 In this paper, by Nan Byars, the issue of mathematics in technology literacy courses is introduced. The emphasis seems to be on how to introduce math as opposed to whether to introduce math.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airplanes for Everyone: A General Education Course for Non‐Engineers

Eberhardt

2000

J of Engineering Edu

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The Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, at the University of Washington, has introduced a new course to non-engineering students. This course is distinguished by the fact that it is specifically designed for non-engineering/science students. The course, called AA101: Air and Space Vehicles, fulfills a "natural world" graduation requirement for University undergraduates. This course has proven so popular that after the first offering it has filled the auditorium and all lab sections every quarter. It is now being offered three quarters a year. AA101 includes hands-on learning, multi-media presentations, and classroom demonstrations. Lab sections each week demonstrate principles learned in class and are usually centered about a fun activity. Examples include learning to fly with Microsoft FlightSimulator, building a rubber powered balsa airplane, and launching water rockets. In several of these activities, teamwork is stressed. A conscious decision in the creation of the course was to eliminate analysis in order to attract the broadest audience. Graduates of AA101 are thus familiar with the concepts but cannot apply analytical tools to aerospace engineering.

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Technological Literacy Classes: The State of the Art

Cited by 25 publications

References 7 publications

Teaching Technology Literacy: An Opportunity for Design Faculty?

Teaching Technology Literacy: An Opportunity for Design Faculty?

A Translational Bioengineering Course Provides Substantial Gains in Civic Scientific Literacy

Airplanes for Everyone: A General Education Course for Non‐Engineers

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