Spurred by the needs he saw in his students, Mike Pavelich became interested in science education and “how people think” early in his career. Following his passion to the Colorado School of Mines, he became interested in engineering education due to the influence of his colleagues. He co-authored a chemistry lab manual aimed at increasing analytical thinking titled Inquiries in Chemistry. He is also a co-founder of the EPICS program at Colorado School of Mines, which trains undergraduate students in evaluative thinking methods.

The profile below was authored by Mallory Squier, Syracuse University, based on an interview with Dr. Pavelich in 2014.

Dr. Michael J. Pavelich

Emeritus Professor
Colorado School of Mines

Ph.D., Chemistry, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1970
B.S., Chemistry, University of Notre Dame, 1966

From chemistry to engineering education

My first faculty appointment was at the University of Oklahoma in the Chemistry Department. Right away, I began teaching large classes, and I fell into a good stride. After a little while, I realized that nothing had really changed since I was an undergraduate. We were still lecturing students in this traditional format, and most students weren’t learning deeply enough. I began to look for chemistry education resources on how people learn and found none. I was then fortunate to begin working with John W. Renner, a physicist who had experience in science education. He became my mentor in this field and was my introduction to science education. He introduced me to the work of Jean Piaget, including a study on an intellectual development model done at a French high school. This is when I became interested in how people think.

Shortly after, we were able to hire Michael Abraham, who also had science education and educational research training, into the Chemistry Department. He introduced me to the work of Patricia Blosser and her taxonomy on types of thinking. We collaborated at Oklahoma for only three years, but that created a working relationship that has lasted for thirty. We developed lab-teaching formats that focused on getting students to use analytical (convergent) thinking in their labs. We published this work as a lab manual titled Inquiries into Chemistry, which is still used at many schools nationally.

When I moved to the Colorado School of Mines in 1977, I was hired to do education research. I became very interested in engineering education, because Mines is an engineering school and all of my colleagues were engineers. I began pushing for evaluative thinking (solving gray-area, open-ended problems), and with the support of my colleagues we created EPICS, the Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence. It began as a four-semester program for freshman and sophomores, where groups of students were given open-ended problems from industry and a semester to solve them. We coached them through the semester and did other little things to help them understand evaluative thinking and how to work within it. This program still exists today, over 30 years later.

Finding the “perfect place”

The Colorado School of Mines was really one of those perfect places for somebody like me. There were a lot of people interested in engineering education, and some were in administration, so they had authority. I was really fortunate to interact with so many people who were interested and supportive of my work. When I began pushing the idea of evaluative thinking, I gave several seminars on it.   Other faculty members, Dendy Sloan and Thomas Wildeman, were already thinking of putting together an education seminar series for faculty. We pooled our resources to put it together, and it really became a successful series. It provided access to the engineering education language and research for many faculty, and spurred their excitement and involvement in the field. After this, several faculty in different engineering departments began picking up on the approach that Michael Abraham and I had used in our lab manuals.

When I look back on my career, the big things happened when I had colleagues who shared my commitment to and excitement about the higher-level thinking goals. You can use them to put something into place and keep it growing. Our situation at the School of Mines may have been a unique situation where we could create these things and make them last for so long. My wife kept saying, even years later, “Okay, when are the rose-colored glasses going to come off and you’re going to start complaining?” And I didn’t. I had a good time.

Making it long-term

The biggest challenge is to get people excited and involved, and then to keep that excitement going when a program loses its newness. The way we approached it, as this was always a cooperative effort, was to continue to talk about the goal. We talked about the learning models, especially the Perry and Reflective Judgment models. We brought data to the faculty to demonstrate the students’ improvement on the intellectual development scales as a result of their efforts. Through all 35 years I was teaching, I counted on the values of the taxonomies and intellectual development models to continue to bring excitement to our efforts. When you talk to someone who is open to education about these models, it lights them up. They see the opportunity to improve student learning. Then you show them the data that college-level students are not there yet, and that they will not make it on their own. It fires them up. If you keep that up, people stay with you.

When you are part of an innovation, you have to be your own cheerleader and also the praise giver. You have to talk to faculty who are trying to work within your innovation. It is new to them, too.   Even though they are excited about it, you have to give them the positive feedback they need to make sure they are respected for their work. Don’t leave them hanging.

Facing negativity and making a lasting difference

Despite the support from my institution throughout my career, there were always some who did not like what we were doing. There were times when I had to defend my work against my detractors. When I had to do this, I used the intellectual development models and our data, showing that our students were on the lower levels of intellectual development. The data shows that a standard college curriculum does not allow students to move up in the intellectual development models. When you use a reasonable argument supported by data, detractors cannot argue against what you are doing. It forces them to find a different reason to be against your innovation, such as cost-benefit, which is a harder fight. Focusing on their negativity can be a barrier in engineering education, or with any change you are trying to create. You have to move forward and work with people who have positive outlooks.

After I left, there was some downsizing of the programs I had created and defended for so many years. In one freshman course, we were working so hard to get students to think more complexly in an analytical way, and it required a lot of good teachers. Once I had retired the faculty resources were pulled from the course. You cannot defend something when you aren’t there anymore. It is frustrating, but I am happy that it lasted for 30 years.

About a decade after Michael Abraham and I first published our lab manual, we attended an ACS (American Chemical Society) meeting. We went to several sessions and were amazed to see them using our language and our ideas. People were picking up on our ideas and applying them to physical chemistry and organic chemistry. I remember Michael leaned over to me and said, “We’re winning.” So in the end we still made a lasting difference, you just don’t win everything.

Taking taxonomies seriously, and today’s challenges

One important thing I have tried to accomplish throughout my career is to document the importance of learning taxonomies in engineering education. It is important that practitioners in engineering education take learning taxonomies seriously and fully understand how to implement them in the classroom. I’d recommend to those interested in the field that they truly look at theories of learning like the Perry Model of Cognitive Development or the Reflective Judgment Model. Build up a background in the theory of education and learning so you have a stronger underpinning for all the decisions that you make. Then, follow a research cycle. Find a good goal and a good model. Do your design and find a good measurement tool. Then, complete a feedback loop on that process.

The challenges really aren’t that much different today than they were for me. My focus on education research at the University of Oklahoma resulted in my not meeting tenure requirements, because I wasn’t publishing in chemistry. Those impossible standards still exist at many institutions. Others have more reasonable approaches and the environment you find yourself in is really important to your success. Support from your institution, the administration and your colleagues can enhance your productivity or become a barrier.

 

Photo provided by Dr. Pavelich.