Is Memorizing Facts Passé?

I believe you are on to something here. There are many students who do not enter engineering or other science disciplines because they are afraid of the challenge of passing complex math courses. Many of these same students real do have the brain power to do it, but choose other paths which are probably perceived as more economically rewarding anyway (e.g Law).

If we instead taught courses that emphasized the use of computers to do the heavy math, perhaps more students would enter these important curricula. Some of those students would even get interested in the solutions, and decide to tackle the underlying math afterall, perhaps in grad school.

After graduation, getting hired and involved with an interesting project will nearly always stimulate one to learn even more.

I have experienced this

When I went through engineering tech school at NASA in the 60's and 70's, we were pretty much told not to waste our brain power on rote memorization. Instead, focus on problem solving, creativity and troubleshooting.

BUT, we also were taught that it was crucial to have the basic tools at hand to refer to when necessary; ie, handbooks, military specs, prior work, etc, and know how to find stuff in them. Back then it was usually our personal reference library and the Center's library. I even had a semester long class on how to USE Machinery Handbook.

At the least, that training strengthened my critical thinking skills and taught me how to separate the wheat from the chaff. At best, it prepared me to face the vagaries of the Internet.

Hooker

I think I'm in the camp that both are necessary. My daughter is learning multiplication. She understands the concept. That was easy. But she still couldn't perform simple (to those who know) multiplication. Eventually her class had their multiplication tables memorized, but only up to 9's (in Japan they don't do 10's, 11's and 12's as in the US). I asked her what 8 times 10 was and her response was, "Daddy, I only know up to the nines. It took 15 minutes or more to get her to use her understanding of the concept of multiplication and apply it to the 10s. As she uses her knowledge she will be able to apply the concept more easily (I hope). I'm not using her as an example in effort to support why it's important to memorize facts, but more to show how just knowing a concept isn't always enough to be useful.

Now let's apply this to engineering (or other fields for that matter). I believe our minds are tools, just as books, calculators, computers, wrenches, etc. are tools. If I'm working on a job site and need to help a technician or mechanic resolve a problem, I am more efficient if I can do some of the math in my head. If I have to use the sin of 30 degrees in my analysis and can pull out of my tiny grey matter that the value is 0.5, then I may quickly be able to resolve the problem and get on with other work. If I have to run back to my desk and grab a calculator, or look it up on the internet or some other resource, then that takes time and therefore reduces productivity.

Knowledge allows us to formulate solutions to more general problems. If you don't know enough facts it becomes more difficult, if not impossible, to see the more complex relationships that exist between seemingly unrelated parameters.

I do my best not to clutter my mind with memorising things I don't use frequently, to leave room for the important stuff, like sin 30 = .5 or pi = 3.14159 (approximately- if I need more accuracy, I have to look it up). These are two numbers I use frequently, so they are easy to retain. My phone number? Just a minute- I have to go look it up...I hardly ever have a need to call myself...

A certain amount of memorization is necessary to accomplish analyses in a timely manner, but understanding the principles behind the facts is more important. The mind works by associations - givin a certain amount of input, new ideas float to the surface prodded by associations with things we know or have experienced - that's thinking. Rote memorization doesn't usually require thinking at all, although most people use associations with already known things (usually things of interest) to memorize other things - lets face it, memorizing most lists of facts isn't interesting, but being able to immediately "know" some facts is convenient. Even using a (memorized) protocol to analyse a problem is a convenience to avoid overlooking something. Yes, the fact that I can do a search to quickly find some bit of information just unloads my mind of unnecessary data - but what happens when that cyber-link is unavailable? Knowing how that fact was derived is more valuable to me then.

Here in Panama, at the elementary school level, great emphasis is placed on memorization as opposed to understanding the fundamental concepts- as per my wife, who used to be a school teacher. This tends to leave these students at a bit of a disadvantage, in my mind. The ability to apply knowledge to an issue or a problem is far more important than having a string of facts memorized...

memorization as opposed to understanding the fundamental concepts

I ran into engineers and just about all salesmen that do this.....I call it parroting

I remember when trivia pursuit came out............I read the cards.

"You might bluff your way by for a while, but eventually you will be found out and tossed onto the scrap heap"

...or get promoted to upper management...