Work in progress - adaptive expertise: beyond apply academic knowledge

A common attribute related to expertise is the speed and efficiency experts display as they apply what they know to solve novel problems in their domain. Much of our assessment methods focus on this ability to process information quickly and identify solutions to common problems as a display of competency in a particular skill and/or depth of domain knowledge. However, as we review certain examples of expertise we begin to see that this fluency only provides one dimension of the kinds of expertise students should display after graduation, in some cases students may only be able to displaying "routine" expertise for specific problems. We want our learners to have flexible knowledge that allows them to invent ways to solve familiar problems and innovative skills to identify new problems. We suggest that the more desirable definition of expertise relates to students "adaptiveness" to identifying and solving novel problem. This display of "adaptive expertise" ultimately leads to students depth of knowledge and habits of mind that lead to success in their career and enable them to be innovators in their field. This paper explores the characteristics of adaptive expertise and its implication for instruction and assessment in undergraduate engineering education.