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NASA Consultant Lands Smoothly In Education
He's not a rocket scientist but he knows how they think and the significance of how they communicate. That's a lesson easily transferred from the scientific arena to the classroom.
Robert Siudzinski, an expert in educational psychology, came to Washington College from NASA, where he worked on the agency's Knowledge Capture Project. Siudzinski and his team of researchers traveled to NASA sites in Houston, Cape Kennedy and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to interview senior NASA astronauts, engineers and scientists. "As researchers, we were intrigued by their skills in problem-defining, multidisciplinary communication, solution adaptation and systems integration," notes Siudzinski. "Effective 'gray heads' realize the value of diversified project teams and they understand that most mistakes are communication-related rather than technical/engineering in nature."
Siudzinski used their findings to develop curriculum for younger NASA engineers who, Siudzinski discovered, typically rely too heavily on technology and frequently fail to consider the fundamentals of physics. Drawing on their unconscious expert knowledge, veteran engineers are more likely to anticipate problems and adapt to new situation dynamics when problems do arise.
The similarities between veteran engineers and veteran teachers are not lost on Siudzinski, who hopes to tap into that tacit knowledge to better prepare the next generation of teachers.