FIRST founder Woodie Flowers on Educational Reform
May 11, 2009
MIT Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers discusses how and why science and engineering eductation must transform - and how he is working to achieve that goal through FIRST and other elements of education. The presentation was given at Olin College of Engineering. If you are an entrepreneur that is looking to hire Engineers or scientists in the future, this is a “must see” video:
He posits that training is a commodity, education confers comparative advantage, and much of what we call education is actually training. Learning spelling and grammar is training, learning to communicate with it is education. Learning calculus is training, learning to solve problems with it is education, etc.
FIRST is one of the best ways to promote this type of education - he says that learning WITH is always better than learning ABOUT something. Team 1511 (Penfield Robotics) is a woman-lead FIRST team that has a program called “Project Girl Wrench” that addresses attracting women to the FIRST team.
