Topics and Methods

Visual Critical Analysis

Critical thinking is a rational response to questions that cannot be answered definitively and for which all the relevant information may not be available. It is defined here as an investigation whose purpose is to explore a situation, phenomenon, question, or problem to arrive at a hypothesis or conclusion about it that integrates all available information and that therefore can be convincingly justified.

--Joanne G. Kurfis

• Buildings have stories to tell, if you know how to read them

Topics

• Statics and Mechanics of Materials:
  • Forces, motion, and balance.
  • The response of Material to Loads.

• Loads:
• Elements and Connections:

  Beams:

  Compression Elements:

  Connections:

• Assemblies:

  Trusses:

  Cables:

  Arches and Frames:

  Structural Systems:

  Life and death:

Methods of Teaching and Learning

• Broad spectrum.

• Levels of Learning[1]
  
  • Recall & Comprehension
    Remember and summarize information, and follow instructions.

  • Application & Analysis
    Apply abstractions in concrete situations and organize ideas.

  • Synthesis & Evaluation
    Create something unique, exercise judgement, and make critical choices.

  

  A Bottom-Up Approach:

  

  A Focussed approach:

  

Notes

• Adapted from Teaching Critical Thinking,  1995, by Ed Neal of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Carolina.