Critical Thinking and Troubleshooting Issues to Resolution

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  CTE Lesson Plan

• CTE Course Info and Benchmark Notes

  
  

  Program Title (as applicable): Applied Robotics

  Course Title: Foundation of Robotics

  Course Number: 9410110

  Career Cluster: Engineering and Technology

  CIP Number: 0615030330

  Course Type: Non-Career Preparatory

  CTE Standard(s) or benchmarks:

  02.05 Discuss Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and describe its role in robotics.

  06.02 Describe the role of diagnostics and troubleshooting to the engineering design process.

  10.01 Employ critical thinking skills independently and in teams to solve problems and make decisions.

  10.02 Employ critical thinking and interpersonal skills to resolve conflicts.

• Unit Outline

  
  

  This lesson is designed to be used with the case study, Finding the Important Detail that Makes the Difference. See CPALMS resource ID# 207924. It can be used as part of a unit on critical thinking and problem-solving or within a project-based unit to get students thinking about problem-solving strategies.

• Career Connection

  
  

  In this lesson, students will use critical thinking, troubleshooting, problem solving, collaboration, and engineering skills to resolve issue(s) in design and analysis. These skills will be useful for students in a variety of engineering and technical career applications, including those involved in programming, fabrication, design, or data analysis.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  Students will be able to:

  • Discuss the role of input and output data in Human Computer Interaction (HCI).
  • Analyze and evaluate the graphs and diagrams used in the case study.
  • Solve problems and make decisions using critical thinking skills and data.
  • Explain the importance of interpersonal skills in addressing issues and resolving conflicts.
  • Utilize different viewpoints to identify, analyze, and resolve problems.

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students should be familiar with:

  • Applying the Engineering Design Cycle.
  • Interpreting Human-Computer Interactions and graphical representations of data such as a phase diagram.
  • The Relationship of Pressure to Temperature under Different Conditions.
  • Case Study "Finding the Important Detail that Makes the Difference".

• Guiding Questions

  
  
  • When something is not working as we expect, how can we find out what the issue is that needs to be fixed?
  • How can we work with others to help identify and resolve issues?
  • How do we communicate with machines?
  • What is the role of graphs and diagrams in a text?

• Procedure

  
  

  1. To introduce the lesson, pose the guiding questions listed above. Allow students to share responses.

  2. Review the case study (See CPALMS resource ID# 207924) the students previously read (without the outcome).

  • Review the concepts presented in the case study, including how to interpret the phase diagram for water, focusing on critical thinking and troubleshooting skills using the engineering design process.
    • Some criticial thinking skills to to review include: Deductive and Inductive Reasoning, Finding the Discrepancy in Data, and Reviewing the Problem Statement to Ensure All Details are Present and Accounted for. For example: Comparing the initial versus final values to see if they make sense in terms of direction of change, Checking the initial and final conditions as compared to the phase diagram, Ensuring all details of the problem statement are accounted for, etc.
  • Prompt discussion with questions like: “What do you think of the way Jill and/or Bill handled the problem?” or “What factor may have allowed Jose to identify the problem when both Jill and Bill were unable to?”

  3. Pose the question to students before they review the Input/Output Data Sheet (see attachments): "How would the case study be different without the data?"

  • Give students the Input/Output Data Sheet (see attachments) as a reference for the data Jill, Bill and Jose were looking at.

  4. After reviewing the data, students will record their thoughts on the questions below on a sheet of notebook paper.

  • Questions:
    • 1. Why was Bill unable to identify the issue on his own. Support your reasoning.
    • 2. What other data could have been included?
  • Students can submit their answers before moving onto the next step, or the teacher can have students keep these and return to them later at the conclusion of the lesson.

  5. Have students break out into groups and discuss their individual answers. Groups can use the Group Discussion Worksheet (see attachments) to help guide their analysis of the situation.

  6. Present the outcome of the case study to the group of students, allowing the groups of students to read and study the outcome as a group.

  7. Discuss the scenario with the class.

  • Ask students to reflect on their original thoughts they wrote down in step 4 about Bill's struggle to find the problem in the data. Pose the question: Have your thoughts changed or been affirmed? Explain.
  • Analyze the decision by Bill to ask someone from a different department to look at the problem. Discuss with students how the outside perspective of Jose helped solve the problem as well as how using the engineering design process properly helped diagnose and troubleshoot/resolve the issue.
  • Analyze the different approaches taken by Bill and Jose when looking for the issue in the program. Discuss how Jose’s critical thinking skills prompted him to look at the entirety of the data rather than ignoring certain portions of data.
  • Have student now think about Jill's data input and Bill and Jose's interpretation of the data produced by the machine. How was each action important or useful for troubleshooting? Why is it important to be familiar with the characteristics of the materials we are working with?

  8. Have the students submit an answer to the following prompt as an exit ticket:

  • 1a. How can the engineering design process help us identify and resolve issues like the one in the case study?
  • 1b. Critique the approaches to the data and actions taken by the individuals in the case study in working toward a solution."

• Teacher Notes

  
  
  • The boiler is a sealed system, so as the temperature increases, so does the pressure, which leads to the water staying a liquid under the circumstances reflected by the input values for temperature and pressure. Remind the students about the relationship of pressure to temperature (pV=nRT) and if Volume is constant while Temperature increases, pressure must increase as well.
    • Many people fail to realize that the freezing point and boiling point of a substance like water varies at different pressures, so water may not change into a gaseous state above 100°C depending on the pressure in the system. In this case, the output data from the program was based on incorrect input data for the state of the water, which produced the water density value that was out of the acceptable range.
  • Employees in different departments tend to focus on different aspects of a system, and some look at things from different angles based on the job(s) they do. Including someone from a different department can allow access to unique and productive alternative viewpoints.
  • An alternative approach that may make the activity more interesting for students is to give the phase diagram to some groups and omit that information for other groups using the version of the attached data sheet without the diagram. This could later lead to a discussion about how Bill was unable to find the issue because he was only looking at a limited part of the problem (simulated by groups without the phase diagram who would presumably struggle to find a solution), while Jose considered all the information as a whole (simulated by groups with the phase diagram who are more likely to identify the error in the input data).

• Optional

  
  

  Formative Assessment Ideas:

  • Use individual and group responses to the Group Discussion Worksheet (see attachments) as a formative assessment.

  Summative Assessment Ideas:

  • Collect and review student responses on the exit ticket.
  • Have students reflect on their initial thoughts about Bill's failure to solve the problem alone (recorded in step 4) and respond with their updated thoughts after reading the conclusion and discussing it with the class.

  Extension Ideas:

  • Have students think and write about a time when they input data into a program or observed data produced by a machine, create input/output data, and explain how the information was important or useful.