2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper describes the design and early implementation of a first-year sociotechnical integration course called Critical Reasoning in Engineering (CRE). This course aims to strengthen students’ critical thinking and critical reasoning skills by exploring the interplay between the slow evolution of human cognition and the rapid advancement of technology. The purpose of this paper is to describe the pedagogical framework developed to create the course, including the intentional alignment of content, assessment, and pedagogy; the use of evidence-based practices; and the strategic progression of course concepts.

First implemented in Fall 2024 at a mid-sized, private, four-year university, CRE was developed through an iterative design approach grounded in cognitive psychology, student development theory, critical thinking pedagogy, and the Community of Inquiry framework. Guided by the Content–Assessment–Pedagogy design triangle, the instructional team sought to align what students are learning with how they are being taught and assessed. Insights from these frameworks were integrated to scaffold students’ understanding of how cognitive patterns shape critical thinking, particularly during interactions with smart technologies and AI.

Dual-process theories of cognition, introduced to students through Kahneman’s accessible synthesis in Thinking, Fast and Slow, serve as a foundation for the course materials. This System 1 / System 2 framing helps students understand differences between automatic and deliberate thinking, exploring how unconscious thought processes often inform conscious decision-making. Early classroom activities, such as visual and cognitive illusions, demonstrate the pervasiveness of mental heuristics and how easily persuasive technologies can exploit users’ attention and behavior. Students further examine cognitive biases through engineering and technology case studies before considering more conceptually complex systems, such as AI. As students examine the relationship between flawed human cognition and sociotechnical failures, they are challenged to consider how AI systems may reproduce human reasoning patterns and biases embedded in training data, while also considering how AI use can shape their own learning processes and cognitive effort.

Research on teaching critical thinking emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and practice. As such, CRE students engage in low-stakes reflective writing, peer feedback, discussion, and revision-based learning throughout the semester to develop metacognition of their reasoning processes. For major written assignments, students complete multiple draft iterations as they refine their reasoning, writing, and information literacy skills. Early instructor observations suggest that experiential demonstrations, psychologically safe classroom dialogue, and AI-focused examples help students connect critical reasoning concepts to their own technology use and learning. At the same time, implementation has surfaced challenges related to balancing writing instruction, critical reasoning, and engineering-related content; assessing critical thinking through writing; and designing assignments that reduce extraneous cognitive load while discouraging AI shortcutting. Ultimately, the framework created to guide CRE positions critical thinking as a core competency for the formation of ethical engineers, with future work focused on formal evaluation of student learning and assessment approaches.