MONTGOMERY COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

EGR 190

Principles of Critical Thinking in Technology

3-0-3

CATALOG DESCRIPTION

A required course for all students entering the Computer Engineering Technology program. The primary aim of this course is to give students what they need to survive in a rapidly changing world. Much of Classical education focuses on memorizing facts and testing the student's ability to recall these facts on demand. Critical Thinking enables the student to use facts and previous life experience to obtain solutions to new situations.

Technology students will find this approach necessary in developing "trouble shooting" skills. Business students will find it important for doing cost/benefit analysis and students of other disciplines will find "learning how to think" a tremendous asset to their lives.

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PREREQUISITES

High school graduate.

LEARNING GOALS

Upon completion of this course, students should have a better understanding of how to approach solutions to problems in the technologies. They will also develop an ability to read and listen with clear understanding and comprehension of the stated facts.

1. History and Overview of Critical Thinking in Technology

2. Intellectual Standards and Assessment

3. Grasping Connections and Seeing Contrast

4. Using critical thinking to enhance problem solving

a. as applied to technical trouble shooting.

b. as applied to cost/benefit analysis

c. as applied to reading comprehension and listening

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Lecture, group problem solving activities, and exams.

SEQUENCE OF TOPICS

1. Critical Thinking: Fundamental to Education for a Free Society

a. relative to our new technical world view

2. Critical Thinking: the Nature of Prejudice

a. relative to technical trouble shooting

i. Don't confuse me with facts my mind's made up.

ii. What you see is what you get.

b. relative to cost/benefit analysis

c. relative to understanding what is said and read

3. Dialogical and Dialectical Thinking

4. Socratic Questioning

5. self-deception, World Views, and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis

6. Critical Thinking in:

a. Science

b. Rational productivity

LEARNING MATERIALS

Textbooks: Critical Thinking -- Revised 2nd edition -- Richard Paul

Engineering Problem Solving- McGraw-Hill

Arvid R. Eide, Roland D. Jenison,Lane Mashaw, Larry Northup

This course is consistent with Montgomery County Community College’s mission and educational goals.

Prepared by: H. Thomas Tucker, Jr. Date: March 16, 1999