Technological Literacy Classes: The State of the Art

NAN A. BYARSDepartment of Engineering Technology University of North Carolina, Charlotte

ABSTRACT

This paper presents information about technological literacy classes(TLCs) for liberal arts majors, emphasizing an engineering-basedapproach with a strong hands-on component. Engineering-basedTLCs can increase technological literacy for liberal arts studentsand benefit engineering and engineering technology (ET) pro-grams at the same time. The central goal of this paper is to provideresources for engineering and ET faculty interested in developingTLCs, including a summary of successful teaching strategies, anannotated bibliography, and a discussion of differing approachesto technological literacy. The paper proposes a working definitionfor technological literacy (drawing on “cultural literacy” (Hirsch)).A survey of technological literacy covers C. P. Snow’s The TwoCultures, the New Liberal Arts (NLA) Program, and the Science/Technology/Society (STS) movement. The paper suggests forma-tion of an ASEE group to specifically address technological litera-cy as a liberal art.

I. INTRODUCTION

As we approach the year 2000, global leaders in business, politicsand education emphasize that all citizens, not simply engineers andscientists, must become technologically and scientifically literate inorder to function effectively in the workplace and to make wise de-cisions at the ballot box.1-8 Sheila Tobias proclaims: “Technical lit-eracy is an idea whose time has come.”9 The ASEE has asked engi-neering deans to “...take responsibility for helping non-engineeringmajors on their campuses better understand the importance andrelevance of technology in their lives, and seek to better equip thosestudents to prosper in an increasingly technological world.”10

Engineering-based technological literacy classes (TLCs) for lib-eral arts students largely remain the work of individual engineeringand engineering technology faculty members scattered throughoutthe United States. There is no “standard” text, syllabus or method-ology. At the same time, valuable information on TLCs does exist,including texts, class materials and ideas for activities, both in the li-brary and, increasingly, through the Internet.

This paper reviews “the state of the art” of engineering-basedTLCs. It includes a summary of recommendations from experi-enced practitioners, discussion of the New Liberal Arts (NLA) andScience/Technology/Society (STS) approaches, and an annotatedbibliography of books and web resources useful for TLCs. I com-

piled much of this information while developing UnderstandingTechnology, a technological literacy class for liberal arts students thatI teach at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC).

A. Why Should Engineers Teach Technological Literacy Classes?There are many good reasons for engineering and ET programs

to offer technological literacy classes for liberal arts students. TLCscan make a positive impact on students and society, as well as bene-fit engineering and engineering technology programs. JohnCrecine, former President of Georgia Tech, feels so strongly aboutthe place of technological literacy in modern college education thathe advocates making “...technology one of the liberal arts of thetwenty-first century.”11 The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s NewLiberal Arts (NLA) Program agrees that “a sound foundation inquantitative reasoning and technology” should be considered “new”liberal arts, not “replacements for the traditional liberal arts” but“liberating modes of thought needed for understanding the techno-logical world in which we now live.”12 As early as 1923, C. GrantRobertson of the University of Birmingham delivered a prescientspeech titled “Humanism and Science” to a group of engineeringeducators, arguing eloquently that science and technology must bepart of a liberal education.13

1) A Crisis in Scientific and Technological Literacy. Americandecision makers in business and government are interested in tech-nological literacy for practical reasons. Reliable measures of Ameri-can scientific literacy are alarming. A recent study concluded thatonly 5 to 7 percent of the general public qualifies as scientifically lit-erate, and fewer than one in five Americans with a bachelor’s degreemeet minimal criteria for scientific literacy.14 Around the world,other nations are taking aggressive steps to insure high levels oftechnological proficiency.15 England and Wales have added tech-nology to the list of compulsory subjects for all students.16,17 LesterThurow points out that 70 percent of Japanese and EuropeanCEOs have technical backgrounds compared to 30 percent ofAmerican CEOs.18 “How,” he asks, “can American business con-tinue to compete with overseas firms whose work forces are somuch more technically and intellectually proficient? The answer is, itcan’t.” Proponents of environmentally and socially responsibletechnology management also emphasize the importance of a tech-nologically literate general population. They suggest that all edu-cated citizens should be able to critically analyze technologies,knowing that technology applied inappropriately can contribute toenvironmental problems, sociopolitical inequities, and economicwaste.

Physicist and veteran science educator Morris Shamos, in hisprovocative book, The Myth of Scientific Literacy, (1995), debunkscalls for universal “scientific literacy” as wishful thinking.19 Shamosargues instead for non-specialist education centered on technology:“...Technology, we know, is much closer to the student than is sci-

January 1998 Journal of Engineering Education 53

Technological Literacy Classes: The State of the Art

ence, more meaningful because it deals with real things...Achievingsome measure of technological literacy in our schools may be ten-able, where scientific literacy is not. In short, technology has the‘hook’ (of practical interest) that science lacks for most students”.

2) Engineers Can Do the Job. Engineering and Engineeringtechnology faculty members make good candidates to teach tech-nologically oriented classes to liberal arts undergraduates. Amongengineering educators are many experienced teachers with solidtechnical backgrounds, who know how to encourage active learningthough hands-on activities, such as design projects and laboratories,techniques that are especially valuable for students with little tech-nical background. Evidence suggests that TLCs (particularly intro-ductory courses open to new engineering students as well as liberalarts students) can have a positive effect on engineering recruitment,enrollment and retention.20 Equally important, the better liberalarts graduates understand technology and engineering, the more ef-fectively they will be able to work and communicate with engineersin the workplace and the community.

B. A Brief Modern History of Engineering-Based TLCsIn 1959, C. P. Snow, the respected British scientist and noted

novelist, published his influential essay The Two Cultures.21 Snowwarned that a dangerous chasm divided scientists and engineersfrom literary intellectuals, creating two cultures unable to commu-nicate across the divide. Snow, himself bicultural, did not take sides,though he noted that a scientist is more likely to know aboutShakespeare than a literature professor is likely to know about thesecond law of thermodynamics.

Snow’s alarm resonated throughout Europe and the US duringthe following decades. In 1971, Engineering Education devoted anentire issue to The Two Cultures. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,engineering educators at a number of American colleges began tooffer courses for non-majors. At Penn State and Cornell in 1969,and soon after at Stanford and SUNY Stony Brook, engineers wereprime movers in setting up interdisciplinary programs focused ontechnology and science for non-majors, leading to some of the firstScience/Technology/Society (STS) programs.22 At Florida Tech-nological University in 1972, engineering faculty memberslaunched a series of classes for non-majors, and called on engineersnationwide “...to take the initiative to provide educational opportu-nities for the non-engineering major to help close the gap.”23

During the 1980s, the New Liberal Arts program of the Alfred P.Sloan Foundation helped lay the foundation for engineering-basedTLCs through the creation of textbooks and other course materials,lead by engineering professor John Truxal of the Technology andSociety program at SUNY Stony Brook.24 Penn State’s STS pro-gram and James Adams’ work at Stanford also remain models fortechnological literacy programs. A contrasting approach to STSand scientific and technical literacy, emphasizing the social sci-ences, became influential throughout the US and Europe duringthis period. During the 1990s, expansion of the Internet has madeit much easier for engineering faculty members working on TLCsat scattered locations to exchange ideas and information.

II. DEFINING TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY

Walter Waetjen has thoroughly reviewed the definition of tech-nological literacy.25 Defining “literacy” narrowly as the ability to en-

code and decode messages using a shared symbol system, Waetjenfinds no clearly identified shared symbol system for technology and,as a result, a confusing “welter” of competing definitions for tech-nological literacy. The work of Hirsch26 suggests a different ap-proach to the problem. Hirsch defines “cultural literacy” as the mas-tery of “knowledge meant to be shared by everyone” which allowspeople to communicate and to work together, “common knowl-edge” as opposed to “expert knowledge”. Applying this broader def-inition of literacy to technological literacy suggests a workable defi-nition (Table 1). Defining technological literacy in this wayadmittedly leaves undone the task of identifying precisely which“concepts, procedures and terminology” a TLC should cover.Hirsch and his coworkers publish a list of key concepts in culturalliteracy in a dictionary over 600 pages long! Rather than trying toassemble a similar list of technological concepts and terms—adaunting task for any individual, better suited to cooperative efforts—I chose to focus my class at UNCC on the jobs and research engi-neers typically do, drawing on the approach pioneered by Adams atStanford.27

Waetjen correctly points out that technological literacy, like lit-eracy in a language, is not absolute but variable, depending on theindividual and the context.28 In a TLC for liberal arts students, it ismore important to help students meet reasonable minimum stan-dards and to make progress toward technological literacy than it isto expect perfect mastery of complex and often completely unfamil-iar technical and mathematical concepts during a single semester.

III. CONTRASTING APPROACHES

Many schools now offer highly motivated and qualified studentsthe opportunity to graduate from five year programs with two de-grees, a BS in engineering plus a BA (or equivalent) in a liberal orfine art, pre-professional or science discipline. Traditional minorsin engineering or engineering technology are even more widelyavailable. Both options enable individual students to combinestrong technical education with preparation in a non-engineeringdiscipline (though probably more students combine engineeringwith mathematics or physics than with comparative literature or arthistory).

For the vast majority of liberal arts students, who do not choosedouble majors or technical minors, a single semester TLC offers anintroduction to technology and engineering. Well-established pro-grams offer TLCs with an engineering orientation at SUNY, StonyBrook,29,30 Stanford,31 Penn State,32 MIT, Dartmouth33 andLehigh34 along with new courses at Miami University of Ohio,35

Lake Superior State University, Michigan,36 The University ofDayton,37 and UNCC. The National Science Foundation (NSF)has recently funded the development of TLCs at the University ofCalifornia, Irvine, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Uni-versity of Maine, Orono, Middlesex County College (New Jersey),Franklin Pierce College (New Hampshire), and Dartmouth College(New Hampshire) (a mathematics course on CD ROM).38

A. The New Liberal Arts ProgramThe New Liberal Arts (NLA) program stands out as a model

for engineering-based TLCs.39 NLA was based on the premise thatcollege students should understand not only the fundamental con-cepts of technology and how structures and machines function, but

54 Journal of Engineering Education January 1998

also the scientific and cultural settings within which engineerswork, and the impacts (positive and negative) of technology on in-dividuals and society. The program provided grants to 48 institu-tions of higher education, supporting the establishment and modi-fication of technology courses for non-majors taught byengineering programs, the organization of minors in technology,and the creation of class materials and textbooks.40,41,42,43 NLA mate-rials, especially textbooks by Truxal, provide an excellent startingpoint for creating or strengthening a TLC.44

B. Science/Technology/Society (STS) and Science StudiesA large number of web sites, books and journals address techno-

logical and scientific literacy from the perspective known as Sci-ence/Technology/Society (STS). British physicist John Ziman iscredited with coining the acronym.45 The majority of STS pro-grams rely primarily on the analytical tools and traditions of socialscientists, historians and philosophers. Historically, however, twodistinct approaches exist within STS. Rustum Roy, a pioneer inPenn State’s STS program, suggests that STS programs were origi-nally quite different from the now dominant social science ap-proach, which he calls “science studies.”46 “Real” STS programs,such as those at Penn State, Cornell, Stanford and SUNY StonyBrook, Roy says, were interdisciplinary, with engineers and scien-tists leading or fully involved in the leadership.

The science studies branch of STS has been highly successful.Its impacts are beginning to resonate from K through college grad-uate programs, as enthusiastic practitioners seek to establish scien-tific literacy from a science studies/STS perspective.47 The analysisof technological disasters provides one popular focus for sciencestudy/STS materials, from the Challenger explosion to Chernobylto Bhopal to Three Mile Island.48 Among engineers and naturalscientists, science studies/STS has both outspoken critics andstrong supporters.49,50,51 Of the critics, Shamos is particularlyscathing:

“Science and technology have always had their share of critics,

some serious-minded, others opportunistic, but these were nothingcompared to those now swarming about science (particularlyaround the new Science/Technology/Society movement) like hon-eybees about a newfound source of nectar. The reason seems obvi-ous: many now look upon science, not as a force for progress, but asthe source of many of the ills of modern civilization, a convenientvehicle for criticism and confrontation.”52

1) Engineering-Based TLCs versus Science Studies/STS.Most science studies/STS practitioners would doubtless take of-fense at being labeled anti-science and technology, and some STSstudies provide thought provoking reading for engineers. Howev-er, the bulk of the science studies/STS materials I reviewed werenot useful in creating my engineering-based TLC. My experienceis consistent with that of Osama Ettouney, who chose to redesigna non-major engineering class at the University of Miami fromone using the STS format, after finding that the STS approachwas “not designed to introduce students to engineering design, labwork, or to integrate science and mathematics in open-ended pro-jects.”53

As an engineer, it seems most appropriate to base the TLC Iteach on the analytical tools and traditions of engineering ratherthan those of social science. A hands-on TLC can give liberal artsstudents the opportunity to experiment with methods engineersuse, and to actively experience the process of design and applicationof scientific principles.54-57 When liberal arts students discover thatthey are capable of creative problem solving using materials, mathe-matics and technological processes, they take a giant step towarddemystifying technology and engineering.

I do not find the science studies/STS approach without value,however. The two perspectives on technological literacy are distinctand complementary, and neither can replace the other. Traditionallyin STS, interdisciplinary cooperation “across cultures” has been andremains very valuable.


Table 1. A working definition of “technological literacy.”

IV. PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF ORGANIZING TLCS

When organizing a TLC, faculty members are faced with prac-tical choices. Decisions must be based on available resources, thestudent population and their interests, and the commitment, timeand energy of the faculty .

A. Successful Strategies for TLCsIn the literature describing successful engineering-based TLCs

in detail, as well as in discussions with faculty currently working ontechnological literacy classes for liberal arts students or “survey ofengineering” courses, a number of common themes emerge. I havecompiled a summary of these key ideas, along with a number othervaluable suggestions from colleagues (Table 2).

B. Texts and Materials for TLCsPulling together an engineering-based TLC is a creative process

that demands a good deal of personal involvement - it is not astraight-forward task like teaching a statics or thermodynamicscourse. However, there is a wealth of material available to help youget started. I have listed some of the most helpful materials in theannotated Appendix to this paper.

C. Should TLCs Be Open to All Students?Engineering-based TLCs tend to fall into two categories, classes

open to both engineering and non-engineering majors, and“closed” TLCs limited only to liberal arts students. Each approachhas advantages and disadvantages.

1) Classes Open Only to Liberal Arts Students. With carefulplanning on the part of the teacher, classes limited to liberal artsstudents can accommodate those with little mathematics or sciencebackground. These classes have the advantage of being easier to or-ganize, and make a good “first” TLC for departments to offer. Fac-ulty can adapt such courses to the needs of particular groups, such aselementary education or business majors. However, they have thedisadvantage of not allowing engineering and liberal arts under-graduates to mingle and work together on projects. To compensatefor this, the instructor can invite upper division engineering or ETstudents to act as teaching assistants, present sessions and demon-strate senior projects.

2) Classes Open to All, Including Engineering and ET Stu-dents. “Open” classes are frequently introductions to engineering orengineering technology, typically intended for lower division stu-dents. These courses often survey the profession of engineering.The pace and mathematical level may be more challenging than innon-major classes, especially if credit for the class counts toward theengineering major. This type of class can accommodate liberal artsstudents, and provide a steppingstone to engineering or technologymajors. David McDonald and his colleagues of Lake Superior StateUniversity’s Engineering Technology program caution that manytechnical and non-technical majors alike arrive from high schoolonly “moderately” prepared for college.58 He believes that an “open”course can help introduce students to mathematical and other basicskills in a positive way before they tackle traditionally required“weed out” classes, permitting engineering and ET students totaste the pleasures of engineering practice early in their academiccareers.

3. Design-Based Engineering Classes. Open engineering-based project design classes are highly popular and successful at

some schools.59 These can contribute to an understanding and ap-preciation of technology and the engineering method. Typically,engineering students and non-engineering students work togetherfor a single term to design and produce a project. At Lehigh Uni-versity, Engineering in Society (STS 12) looks at engineering as aproblem-solving activity, focusing on design, modeling, testing,safety analysis, product and client relations.60 Developed for liberalarts students, it is also popular with engineering students who feel itadds a missing element to their regular program. Lehigh also offersan integrated design class which draws on engineering, businessand the humanities, and culminates in the production of a productusing skills from all three areas. Engineering and ET faculty mem-bers have also created “conceptual blockbusting”61 classes open to allstudents at a number of different schools, which explore aspects ofdesign and problem solving.

In spite of the many advantages to the “open” approaches, anopen class is more difficult to organize than a “closed” course. Forinstance, setting an appropriate mathematical level and makingsure that the content of the class meets requirements for engineeringmajors may pose problems not just for professors but at the depart-ment and school levels as well.

D. Recruiting Liberal Arts Students For TLCsStudents in technical communication, business, health, pre-law,

pre-architecture and environmental studies all make excellent can-didates for engineering-based TLCs. Graduates in these fieldsoften work closely with engineers or are especially affected by tech-nology. Education majors are also among those deserving specialattention for recruitment. Students who become teachers, especial-ly elementary school teachers, often have little or no contact withengineering courses. One hopes that introducing elementary andsecondary school teachers to technology will encourage them tospark their pre-college students’ interest in engineering and science.

1) Women and Minority Recruitment (Opening a Door to En-gineering?). Shamos points out that the level of inequity in repre-sentation of women in engineering and physics in the US is “posi-tively shocking;” women earned only 15 % of bachelor’s degrees inthese fields in 1985, compared to 46 percent in mathematics and 85percent in the health professions.62 Teachers, counselors, friendsand family may all fail to encourage mathematically gifted womenand minority students to consider engineering. One of the statedobjectives of a Miami University program for integrating engineer-ing into the education of non-engineering students is to attract andretain women and minorities.63

Technology courses for liberal arts students can improve reten-tion and recruitment in engineering programs. At Tufts University,Engineering Dean Ioannis Miaoulis reports that, for the first timein the 100-year history of the university, “Instead of losing about 15percent of our engineering freshmen to liberal arts...we gained 5percent from liberal arts” (during the first year the engineeringschool offered a TLC-type course.)64

E. MATHEMATICS, COMPUTERS AND TLCS

One of the most important questions in setting up a TLC ishow to handle mathematics. Working with liberal arts studentswho lack strong mathematical backgrounds, TLC professors mayneed to “translate” from mathematical symbols into words, pic-


tures, and examples. One very useful idea, documented by PatriciaSamaras,65 is to begin with design projects and practical applica-tions, introducing mathematics “just in time” as students seek waysto explain and record data and observations. It is important to dis-cuss mathematics in applied contexts, rather than beginning with

theoretical discussions.66,67 Myers suggests writing equations usingwords to explain mathematical concepts and to show how equa-tions work.68 I give liberal arts students a simple ungraded pre-testto assess mathematical ability, a technique others recommend.69,70

1) The Liberal Arts “Hacker Factor”. I have met a few


Table 2. Successful strategies and ideas for TLCs.

“non-technical” undergraduates who have developed a prodigiousfamiliarity with computers and, occasionally, programming lan-guages. Identifying these students early and giving them assignmentsthat build on their skills can benefit both the student and the class.

V. UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY AT UNCC:FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

UNCC first offered my TLC for liberal arts students, Under-standing Technology, during the fall semester, 1996. I designed Un-derstanding Technology as a survey course limited to students withnon-technical majors. Preparation for the course began over a yearearlier with a literature review and search for appropriate materials,funded by a Curriculum, Instruction, and Development (CID)Grant from UNCC. My undergraduate assistant for the project, apolitical science major, was a valuable sounding board for ideas andactivities.

A series of simple hands-on design projects was the cornerstone ofthe course. Students worked in teams on a long term design project,designing, building, and demonstrating a solution to an assignedtechnical problem (to make a self-propelled device, within parame-ters set by the professor, for moving a roll of toilet paper across asmall lake on campus without getting the roll wet). Demonstrationday attracted media attention, and class found itself featured, with alarge photo, on the front of the local section of the Charlotte Ob-server. Students also designed, built and tested paper columns, anddesigned and created an assembly line to construct paper cartons.We held a number of classes in a computer laboratory where stu-dents used existing software to design a slider-crank mechanismand a thermally efficient window, and used spreadsheets to calcu-late their own weekly energy and water use.

The class examined the question “What does an engineer do?”for civil, electrical, manufacturing, and mechanical engineers, to geta feel for what is involved with each field. Guest speakers addressedsuch topics as lasers, fiber optics, polymers, environmental engi-neering, and construction engineering. The class watched and dis-cussed several excellent videos produced by the Society of Manu-facturing Engineers (SME), and made field trips to on-campusengineering labs and facilities.

VI. CONCLUSION

A leader in creation of engineering courses for liberal arts stu-dents, Professor Emeritus John Truxal of the State University ofNew York (SUNY), Stony Brook, reminds us that “...this nationneeds an educated public that is technologically literate“, and that“...some of us engineering educators must focus on the broader au-dience of college students who will be leaders in the next century.”71

Engineering and engineering technology faculty working ontechnological literacy classes are already making informal contactwith one another to share information and materials. The time mayhave arrived for engineering educators interested in developing andteaching classes for liberal arts majors to join forces in a more formalway. A working forum within ASEE on engineering-based TLCscould provide a way for interested members to exchange informa-tion about curriculum, texts and materials, and to assist one anotherin establishing the study of technology as a new liberal art.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported in part by funds provided through aCurriculum, Instruction, and Development Grant from the Uni-versity of North Carolina at Charlotte. The author wishes to thankthe students who enrolled in Understanding Technology, a new andunknown course; my colleagues throughout the country who gen-erously shared their insights and materials; and my editorial assis-tant (and husband) Don Boekelheide for his support and assistancein preparing this paper.

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APPENDIX

Annotated Bibliography For Engineering And EngineeringTechnology-Based Technological Literacy Classes For LiberalArts Students.

Engineering and Engineering Technology courses for non-ma-jors do not typically rely on a single textbook. Even John Truxal, au-thor of several state-of the-art books, mentions that his classes useda hefty packet of photocopied material. For the foreseeable future,creative improvisation is the order of the day. The following booksand resources provide a starting point for faculty members initiatingor modifying a TLC.

THE NEW LIBERAL ARTS SERIES

The Alfred E. Sloan Foundation sponsored the New LiberalArts program, which funded the creation of a series of excellenttextbooks specifically for technological literacy courses for liberalarts students. (Some are well suited for “orientation” or “survey”courses for engineering and engineering technology majors as well).

The Age of Electronic Messages, John Truxal, (MIT Press, 1990).The fruit of over a decade of teaching technology as a “new liberalart”, this masterful book is organized in chapters by technologicalconcepts, such as “Technology of Communications,” “The Engi-neer Looks At Hearing,” and “Signals Through Space.” Eachchapter explores topics in a practical and historical context withsolid technical, scientific, and mathematical discussions. For exam-ple, under “Digital Signals,” Truxal illuminates, among other top-ics, Morse code, sampling, the ZIP code, and digital audio.

Personal Mathematics and Computing: Tools for the Liberal Arts,Frank Wattenberg, (MIT Press, 1990). This text exposes liberalarts students to programming and mathematics through use of


well-chosen topics explored in some depth, from optics to how thestate distributes lottery funds to different communities.

Discovery, Innovation and Risk: Case Studies in Science and Tech-nology, N. Coop and A. Sanely,(MIT Press, 1992). This well-writ-ten book discusses the impacts of technologies during the 20th cen-tury. The case studies of topics, including the transformation ofgasoline from a waste product to a fuel that built great fortunes,stressed concrete bridges and their impact on highway design, andthe risks and benefits of vaccines, make excellent reading assign-ments as a counterpoint to hands-on labs. Science and mathemati-cal concepts are introduced as needed, in a way that should attractthe non-technical toward deeper study of these areas.

Flying Buttresses, Entropy, and O-Rings: The World of an Engi-neer, James Adams, (Harvard Press, 1991). Although technicallynot a NLA book, the NLA program supported Adams’ work, andhe created the book for a year-long general studies course sequenceat Stanford University in Technology, Science, and Mathematics. Itgives an accessible overview of engineering from a working engi-neer’s perspective. Chapters explore steps in the engineering process(for instance, design and invention; development, test and failure),the tools of engineering (mathematics; science and research) and re-alities of life as an engineer (money and business; regulation).(Adams is also the author of Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Bet-ter Ideas, a useful book for teaching design and encouraging creativeproblem-solving suitable for engineers and non-engineers alike).

ADDITIONAL TITLES

Man and His Technology, E. Piel, and J. Truxal, (McGraw Hill,1973).

Technology: Handle with Care, E. Piel, and J. Truxal, (McGrawHill, 1975).

Trailblazing books that predate the New Liberal Arts program.They are “written by engineers for students who have no plans forcareers in physical science or engineering to give a basic under-standing of technology.” Similar to Truxal’s NLA editions, thesebooks are organized in chapters each covering an issue of public in-terest, such as “Water,” “Population,” or “The Energy Crisis,” or atopic of engineering interest with social applications, such as“Models” or “Decisions.” Because the books are now two decadesold, some updating may be needed.

Impact of Technology, J. Balistreri, (International TechnologyEducation Association, 1988). A pamphlet covering a brief discus-sion of STS issues, very useful as a point of departure for a class em-phasizing the “technological” component of increasing technologi-cal understanding. Helpful lists of filmstrips, texts, videos, films,and agencies, but as yet no web sites or electronic links.

Definition of the Engineering Method, Billy V. Koen, (ASEEPress, 1985). This book, like Florman’s The Existential Pleasures ofEngineering (St. Martins, 1976), has become something of a “clas-sic” text in non-major engineering classes. Koen’s book is useful forgiving a taste of how engineers approach their work, and an engi-neering perspective on “heuristics,” a topic which may be familiar tosome liberal arts students, especially in the fine arts.

Technology Systems, R. Thomas Wright, (Goodheart-Willcox,1992). R. Thomas Wright of Ball State University has compiled atextbook for a survey course on technology which presupposes nospecial background in mathematics or science. This colorfully illus-

trated book in a standard textbook format covers a wide variety ofprocesses and technological issues from a very straightforward, en-gineering-oriented viewpoint. The book seems well suited to lowerdivision, community college, or even high school classes and maymake a useful supplemental text.

Science/Technology/Society as Reform in Science Education, RobertE. Yager (Ed.),(State University of New York Press, 1996). An in-teresting collection of articles from an STS perspective, presentingbenefits and pedagogical approaches (such as constructivism), andan international view of STS, though directed to science teachersmore than to engineering and ET.

The Way Things Work, David MacAulay (Houghton Mifflin,1988). An illustrated look at the inner workings of familiar objects,large and small. Artistically appealing, useful for classes. A new CDROM version is now available (Dorling Kindersley, Multi Media,1997).

Lehigh University Science, Technology, and Society Newsletter,Stephen Cutliffe, Editor. This quarterly newsletter publishes shortarticles on the theoretical and speculative aspects of curriculum de-velopment, in-depth program and course descriptions, reviews oftexts and audio-visual aids, and an annotated bibliography of cur-rent books. An ‘Open Forum’ is available for readers with ques-tions, comments, or announcements regarding STS activities orneeds. For subscription information, visit the Lehigh site on theweb (http://www.lehigh.edu/~insts/insts.html), or contact Dr.Cutliffe at 610.758.3350.

THE INTERNET

The Internet can provide a great deal of up-to-date information,though much of the material available from web sites is sciencestudies/STS in orientation. A highly useful aspect of computer-based communication is the use of e-mail to make contacts, askquestions and exchange ideas. Using the computer in this waywould also make a worthwhile class activity for a TLC, perhapslinking classes at two or more schools to cooperate on a project. Aweb site for engineering-based TLCs would be useful, too.

The following sites are useful places to start for engineering fac-ulty interested in technical and engineering courses for liberal artsmajors. Some are good sources of background and history ofTLCs and STS. However, they do change, and this list will needto be updated.

SUNY Stony Brook STS Programhttp://www.ceas.sunysb.edu/DTS/main.htmlThe program started by John Truxal.

Stanford University STS Programhttp://www-leland.Stanford.edu/group/STS/Information on the engineering-based class(es) started by James

Adams, which are still offered along with many other STS coursesat Stanford.

MIT STS Programhttp://stsfac.mit.edu/main.htmlA look at an impressive science studies/STS program. Also

worth a look are SUNY Institute of Technology STS site and Cor-nell STS site.


NCSU STS Program http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/chass/mds/psts.htmlA useful gateway to other STS sites, but little sign of engineers.

Dr. Sokol’s Scam http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/A thought provoking and amusing 1990s update on Snow’s two

cultures.

Rustum Roy’s History of STS at Penn Statehttp://www.engr.psu.edu/sts/testbed/editme/roy.htmlInteresting background information.

National Science Foundation http://www.nsf.gov/home/ehr/start.htmA useful source of information on TLC projects, search grant

abstracts using the term “technological literacy”.


Documents

Technological Literacy Classes: The State of the Art