Application of engineering and mathematical concepts to curriculum structure
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Date
1971
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Abstract
Within the past five years all of higher education has been challenged to justify its very existence. Accountability is demanded of the goals and the procedures. Hopefully, out of this challenge will grow and develop a better educational system; that new concepts, methods, and techniques will be found so as to better develop the mental resources of this nation. Industrial Engineering, since the forties, has developed many mathematical and engineering approaches toward analyzing processes and flow systems. This document proposes that some of these mathematical concepts and engineering techniques are applicable toward a better and more objective understanding of education's instructional/learning processes; that through the use of mathematical concepts and engineering techniques new dimensions of measure can be incorporated in the structure and design of curriculum. A sizeable amount of this document is directed toward weaving a coherent thought through the widely scattered existing literature that has a mathematical or engineering connotation. Hierarchies, one of the more modern approaches toward explaining the theory of learning, is expanded through the application of Boolean logic operations. The spanning trees employing binary logic are subject to Boolean algebra analysis. The result of the model in conduction with a defined testing sequence is the capability of readily identifying alternate possible paths to the learning task. A transformation from the model employing spanning trees to a flow system permits viewing a selected curriculum as a dynamic system having inputs and the needed fixed and stochastic parameters.
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Major industrial engineering