The Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia: Portaging Leadership Lessons with a Critical Thinking Model...

The Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia: Portaging Leadership Lessons with a Critical Thinking Model

Rob Niewoehner, CAPT, USN, PhDCraig 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


The paper

Original paper can be found http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/eng

ineering-reasoning.cfm http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/20

08/Highlights.cfm#Awards

Engineering Management Journal, March 2009 (adapted)


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


“Portage”


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.”


“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 269-277. (2004)


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”)


What is your conception of Critical Thinking?


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].


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”


Paul’s Critical Thinking Model (ER, pg 5)

Intellectual Humility

FairmindednessIntellectual Autonomy

Confidence in ReasonIntellectual Integrity

Intellectual EmpathyIntellectual Courage

Intellectual Perseverance Intellectual Curiosity

Intellectual Traits/Virtues

Purpose Question at Hand Point of View AssumptionsData/Information ConceptsInferences/Conclusions Implications

Elements of Thought

Intellectual Standards

Clarity Precision Accuracy SignificanceRelevance Fairness Logical DepthBreadth Concision Suitability

Beauty

to develop

must be applied to


Intellectual StandardsClarity Understandable, meaning can be graspedAccuracy Free from errors or distortions, truePrecision Exact to the necessary level of detailRelevance Relating to the matter at hand

Significance Focusing on the important, not trivial

DepthConsidering complexities and interrelationships

Breadth Involving multiple viewpointsLogical Validity

The parts make sense together

Fairness Not self-serving (or egocentric)Suitability Appropriate for the audienceConcision High intellectual density (substance/length)Beauty Aesthetic appeal


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.

Elementsof Thought(ER, pg 9)


Intellectual Traits/Virtues Intellectual Autonomy Intellectual Humility Intellectual Integrity Intellectual Courage Intellectual Curiosity Intellectual Perseverance Fairmindedness Confidence in Reason Intellectual Empathy


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.


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.


Case Study: Columbia Accident Investigation Report (CAIB)

The Accident clip, clip2 The CAIB report. This is a

masterpiece on organizational behavior of high technology teams.It is also a sad and occasionally maddening story.

Chapter 7 Extract, foam1, foam2 paper


Exercise - The Elements of Thought “MMT”= Mission Management Team1. 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?


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.


Resources

Original paper can be found http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/

engineering-reasoning.cfm http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/

2008/Highlights.cfm#Awards Engineering Management Journal, March

2009 (adapted) Engineering Reasoning guide available

(~$2.5 USD) [email protected]

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The Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia: Portaging Leadership Lessons with a Critical Thinking Model...

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