Author: Dr. Robert J. Niewoehner 

About the Book: 

The engineers that have brought us the contemporary world of technological marvels have not solved all the world’s interesting problems, just the easy ones. For working and aspiring engineers, the world’s complexity grows daily, and the problems we face grow more thorny. One’s engineering education could not teach us all we must now know, or even guess at the domains of learning we must master to be effective next year. There are technical domains yet to be created which we will need to master to be effective a decade from now. In the midst of such intellectual complexity and transformation, what foundational thinking skills will serve us across all the domains of our current and future learning, whether technological, business, or social sciences?

Philosopher Richard Paul and Educational Psychologist Linda Elder have long championed a system of critical thinking grounded on the durable work of thinkers through the millennia. The Paul & Elder model provides a proven construct for thinkers’ future learning, regardless of the field. This book contextualizes their model to the daily work of engineers and technologists, drawn from the author’s experience in government, industry and academia. Originally composed to complement an engineer’s undergraduate education, engineering supervisors and technical leaders have insisted, “My current engineering teams need these skills.” Because of the model’s portability to all domains of thinking, aspiring, practicing, and supervisory engineers will find powerful skills for their professional, civic and personal lives.

About the Author: 

Dr. Robert J. Niewoehner serves as the David F. Rogers Professor of Aeronautics at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD. He started his academic career after twenty years as a Navy fighter pilot and test pilot flying developmental fighter programs. His interest in critical thinking was spurred by gaps he saw in students’ thinking patterns, patterns that had successfully gotten them through structured academic engineering problems, but left them ill-equipped for the messy, unstructured professional world they would find beyond graduation.