Introducing Engineering Judgment through Active Learning

The development and implementation of an active learning assignment to develop students' engineering judgment or their ability to apply common sense and proportion to slope stability is outlined. The assignment was developed because students often struggle to ascertain whether a calculated factor of safety is realistic. After completing the various training sets forming the assignment, students were able to judge the stability of slopes to a similar degree of proficiency as practicing engineers. A key aspect of the training sets was presenting problem sets in an increasingly random order. Formal lecturing, on the other hand, had no influence on students' engineering judgment abilities. As expected, overconfidence was shown by students who performed poorly.