What is Engineering Problem Solving?
The Dartmouth/Thayer approach to engineering problem solving is a framework for bringing problems of the “real world” into the classroom. Students solve these problems by proceeding through a problem-solving cycle, step by carefully documented step. If they discover that the solution they are working on is, in fact, unviable, they examine their paper trail and move back only so far as they need, perhaps only a single step. When students have gone the full round of the problem-solving cycle, they look at the original problem and decide whether their solution is specific enough or whether they need to iterate the cycle. The problem can involve any kind of decision making from a social problem, “Students are taking too long to get into the lunchroom”, to a complex one such as how to create an experiment to demonstrate sonoluminescence (light generated by sound).
