A Technical Rationale for
RASSP Educational Activities

by Vijay K. Madisetti
and Anthony J. Gadient

1. Introduction

This article describes, the technical rationale behind the RASSP Education & Facilitation program. In this ground-breaking effort, the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has explicitly funded technology transfer from its Rapid Prototyping of Application-Specific Signal Processors (RASSP) program to the university and industrial communities. Rather than follow the traditional passive approaches (e.g., licenses, papers, patents) for technology transfer from DoD programs to the industry and the universities, it was felt that an active contracted effort would meet the objectives of RASSP better and in a more timely manner.

The RASSP E&F goals may be summarized as follows:

1. Propose a relevant curriculum in system-level design, and create a high quality base of educational material based on RASSP program results to support it.
2. Propose and implement a model for technology transfer commensurate with the needs of industry and academia.
3. Utilize modern technologies, such as distributed collaboration and WWW, to provide the necessary infrastructure to support technology transfer.

2. Bloom’s Learning Taxonomy

Science is generally based on experimental methods that allow the formulation of general theoretical constructs. Applied sciences focus scientific theory to purposeful activity. Technology and engineering, on the other hand, put applied science to work efficiently in a process context. While science seeks basic understanding, technology and engineering are primarily goal-oriented activities in response to societal needs [3,4].

Technical and engineering knowledge can take three forms. Descriptive knowledge describes things as they are, usually rules, general concepts, and principles in a narrative manner. Prescriptive knowledge is the technical know-how gained from repeated application of descriptive knowledge, and can be captured and transferred via case studies and demonstrations. Finally, tacit knowledge is implicit. This encompasses “tricks of the trade”, including protected and competitively sensitive knowledge. Shop floor and “skunk works” type innovations are difficult to capture, and tacit knowledge can only be learned by doing. Thus “hands on” or proximal learning methodologies are most suitable for transferring tacit technological knowledge.

We found Bloom’s taxonomy [2] very useful in the development of a novel Educational Maturity Model (EMM) that has been used as a framework for developing the RASSP educational material to support the transfer of technical knowledge. Bloom classified learning in the classroom into the following levels.

• Knowledge: Student learns terminology, facts, and definitions, including benefits of applying the technology under study.
• Comprehension: Student can make use of ideas and material without seeing their full implication. Extrapolation to new situations is possible in limited context.
• Application: Student can apply knowledge to practical cases through the use of tools.
• Analysis: Student can break down the components of a system, and can identify hierarchies and relationships between elements. Organizational structures and assumptions (unstated) can be recognized.
• Synthesis: Student is able to synthesize a system from start, using decomposition methods or otherwise. This include ability to produce a plan to design and implement the system, and a mechanism to verify that the plan works and will achieve objectives.
• Evaluation: Student can evaluate, compare, critique, and judge various alternative solutions and improve upon the product.

Derived from Bloom’s taxonomy, we developed our Educational Maturity Model (EMM) [5], Figure 1, that allows us to classify the levels of maturity of educational material (see also Figure 2).

1. Basic - This level of material supports knowledge and comprehension abilities on the part of the student.
2. Applicative - This level indicates that educational material facilitates usage of tools and application of knowledge to practical problems in limited context. Knowledge is primarily narrative.
3. Deductive - Supports learning of analytical aspects of technology, and the capability to apply general principles to specific cases. Prescriptive aspects of the knowledge are transferred at this level.
4. Productive - This level supports synthesis-related and evaluative aspects of learning and is the most advanced level. Included are the tacit aspects of the technology being transferred.

The Educational Maturity Model (EMM) allows organizations to develop and evaluate training material at each of the levels. Currently, very little is done in the typical university classroom beyond Levels 1 and 2. Levels 3 and 4 are primarily outcomes of knowledge gained in industry, and would greatly benefit the quality of education in the engineering area were it included in the university curricula. Cooperative industrial training, where the student spends summers in industry, is often an attempt to substitute for Levels 3 and 4.

In our efforts as part of the RASSP program, in addition to Levels 1 and 2, we have attempted to ensure that the material produced would support education at Levels 3 and 4. To accomplish this, the RASSP E&F team has developed a novel module-based framework. Similar to the knowledge unit concept proposed by the Joint Curriculum Task force [1], modules are developed on specific topics and then used in the development of a new course or for updating an existing course. The attractiveness of this approach is that it is easy to insert new material into an existing course or change the emphasis of a course through the use of modules. Likewise, it is easy to develop a new course that is customized towards a specific set of goals by grouping together a collection of modules. These capabilities are extremely useful in overcoming the traditional difficulty that instructors have in inserting new courses into an existing curricula.

A typical module, illustrated in Figure 3, consists of three components. The first component is the fundamental theory underlying the topic being covered. For example, in the module on Test Technology, the theory includes a discussion of the test problem, test generation and fault simulation theory, and design for testability techniques. The second component consists of examples, problems, and case studies. This component provides simple examples that illustrate the theory and provides problems that can be used for homework exercises. The third component of a module is a hands-on laboratory exercise. The laboratory exercise is intended to rigorously demonstrate the concepts taught in the other sections of the module by providing an opportunity to apply those theories on a significant problem in a learn by doing fashion. The article by Maximo Salinas, et. al., entitled “RASSP Educational Activities” presents the RASSP E&F educational activities in more detail including a description of the RASSP E&F team’s development of a comprehensive curriculum for digital system design.

Thus, the Educational Maturity Model (EMM) allows a synergistic effort in both the creation, testing, and archiving of educational material relating to new technology developments. We have recently proposed the creation of a national digital design archive that would utilize the state-of-the-art techniques to address the issues of quality, peer review, and comprehensiveness of a library-based educational system. Course modules, simulation tools, and interactive laboratories, will now undergo a systematic classification and review process before being incorporated into the proposed National Digital Design Archive[5].

References

[1] ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force, Computing Curricula 1991, ACM Baltimore, MD., Order No. 201880, 1991.

[2] Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive domain. New York: Longmans Green.

[3] Frey, R.E. (1989). A philosophical framework for understanding technology. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 27(1), 23-35.

[4] Lewis, T. and Gagel, C. (1992). Technological literacy {A critical analysis. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 24 (2), 117-138.

[5] Madisetti, V., Gadient, A., Stinson, J., et. al., (1997) DARPA’s digital system design curriculum and peer-reviewed educational infrastructure, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, June 1997