Conceptual Difficulties in Teaching History of Science and Technology to Engineering Students

摘要

Lower-division engineering coursework often suggests to students that all meaning-ful questions have quantitative right answers―and that open-ended questions do not merit attention. A course in the History of Science and Technology can provide a valuable antidote to this rigidity of mind. It offers enough factual information―about dates, inventions and mechanisms―to persuade engineering students of its legitimacy. It also obliges students to contend with open-ended questions by embedding those facts in multiple historical, social, and ethical contexts. In-class analysis of these open-ended questions helps to establish the intellectual habit of historical interpretation. In order to make room in the syllabus for this analysis, however, one must be willing to demand the memorization of fewer historical facts.