Home   Scientific Committee   Organising Committee   Venue   Programme including abstracts, full papers and presentations   Social Programme   Conference Themes   Declaration   Photo Gallery   Contact organised by:     ETRAP 2005 23 - 25 November in Brussels, Belgium 3rd International Conference on Education and Training in Radiological Protection Title   Teaching problem solving skills to radiation protection students Presented by   Waller, Edward Institute(s)   University of Ontario Institute of Technology (CA) Description   Problem  solving  skills  are  essential  for  all  engineers  and  scientists.    Although  some  students  have  more  natural  problem  solving  skills  than  others,  all  students  require  practice  to  become  comfortable  using  these  skills.  At  UOIT,  a  course  was  developed  as  part  of  the  core  curriculum  to  teach  students  problem  solving  skills,  along  with  elements  of  modelling  and  simulation.    The  underlying  emphasis  of  the  course  was  to  allow  students  to  develop  their  own  problem  solving  strategies,  both  individually  and  in  groups.    Direction  was  given  on  how  to  examine  problems  from  different  perspectives,  and  how  to  determine  the  proper  root  problem  statement.    Computational  aspects  of  problem  solving  will  be  explored  using  the  commercially  available  MATLAB  computer  code. A  number  of  case  studies  were  presented  as  both  example  and  problems  to  the  student.    Emphasis  was  placed  on  solutions  to  problems  of  interest  to  nuclear  engineers  and  radiation  scientists.    This  paper  will  describe  the  methodology  and  tools  used  at  Canada’s  newest  laptop-based  university  to  teach  the  next  generation  of  nuclear  engineering  and  radiation  science  professionals  essential  problem  solving  skills.  Full paper   Waller.pdf   (45 KB - 45,625 bytes) << back