Dave Covington Students are given a copy of a Reader's Digest article called "Can You Fix My Car" and then write a short essay about their analysis of the contents of the article. The article is about a fairly late model car, 1995 Ford Taurus, which has been "bugged" with a simple problem. The car is then driven across country, stopping at various auto service facilities to determine the level of competence of the mechanics at these facilities. There are, of course, very competent and extremely incompetent people out there. Students are required to address such questions as: " Who do you think did the best job, and why?", " Who do you think did the worst job and why?", "Would you have done the same, or better than the best?", "How does this article apply to what you have been studying in this course?", and "How would you choose a repair facility if you were on vacation 1000 miles from home in a strange town?" There are several other similar questions to be addressed in the exercise. I have consistently been surprised by the depth of thinking and the ability of most of my students to express themselves on this subject. They perform much better on this exercise than on most of my essay type questions on my tests. Perhaps that says something about my test questions. After I read these essays, we have a discussion period wherein I ask them to expand on some of the statements they made in their essay and I try to act as the devil's advocate by challenging some of the ideas, This does not make me particularly popular, but it does enforce the critical thinking component of the project. This exercise better prepares students to express themselves in writing about something of a technical nature. This will be necessary on the job, if they advance to a supervisory position. While I don't have any hard data to support this belief, it stands to reason. Since this exercise is done during the later part of the last semester they are in the program, there is no chance to see transfer of learning into other classes. I am working of putting together similar projects in some of the beginning courses and that effort should enable someone to make some comparisons and evaluations.

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