ABSTRACT
A PEDAGOGICALLY committed colleague recently delivered a lecture to assembled engineering, computer science, and cognitive science faculty to explain the theoretical underpinnings of his popular course on Decision Making in Engineering. A recurring theme of his talk was the contrast between what he called the Traditional Model and his Emergent Model of education. The last item on a transparency he had put up indicated that the Traditional Model required students to “solve puzzles,” whereas the Emergent Model required students to “learn-by-doing with real-world problems.” Tapping on an eggcarton-on-wheels contraption that he had brought with him, the professor behind the podium proclaimed “…and you don’t get any more real world than this.” The statement caught my attention, for only a few minutes earlier, he had explained that the rolling egg carton was designed by his students to be used by the enslaved inhabitants of the planet Algar for the laudable purpose of launching a sleeping gas canister at the tyrant Rhapton.
