[Themaintainers] Asking advice for a new course on skills

Melinda Hodkiewicz melinda.hodkiewicz at uwa.edu.au
Sat Oct 29 05:23:50 EDT 2016


Dear Steve
What an interesting course and thanks for sharing this. As a maintenance engineer I was delighted to see the practical components in your class. Without these I think it would be like trying to describe what it’s like to ride a bicycle to someone who has never done so.

I would offer one suggestion and that is for one of your practical exercises, get the students to do it twice. This way they will appreciate the concepts of reflection and improvement that are integral to skill development. If you only do something once you don’t get that opportunity. It’s what you do the second, third, fourth time that differentiates those that will become competent than those that won’t.

The concept of “practice” is very important. My dentist who has been a dentist for over 30 years explained to me that she’s practices every day (on us!), and reflects on her work after each patient. Good mechanics will say the same thing.

Welding is a great idea. It looks so easy but isn’t. And you can really see the difference between a good welder and a beginner. Woodwork is another potential choice.

It sounds like a great class. Are you going get the students to keep a diary and/ or survey them after? It would be useful to know more about the range of backgrounds of the students and how they deal with the class.
Best wishes
Melinda

Professor Melinda Hodkiewicz
BHP Billiton Fellow for Engineering for Remote Operations
BA(Hons) Oxon, PhD (Eng), CEng, MIMMM, AIMM
School of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering
University of Western Australia
M050, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Australia 6009
Tel: +61 8 6488 7911; Fax: +61 8 6488 1024




From: themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu [mailto:themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu] On Behalf Of Steven Lubar
Sent: Saturday, 29 October 2016 1:29 AM
To: themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
Subject: [Themaintainers] Asking advice for a new course on skills

Dear maintainers,

     I'm starting work on a new course for next year, on the politics and poetics of skill. It's a first-year seminar, with a good bit of hands-on work, from lock-picking to welding, as well as a good bit of historical reading.

The syllabus is here.<https://www.scribd.com/document/329252885/Syllabus-Lubar-Skills-and-Making-Class-DRAFT-OCTOBER-2016>

I'd much appreciate any advice on this. I've never taught a course anything like this before. Other readings to recommend? Things to leave out? How much instruction is useful for some of the projects? Anyone who's taught a course like this I should get in touch with?

Thanks,

Steve
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