A Creative Approach to Teaching Undergraduate Mechanics Emphasizing Development of Instructional Tools to Enhance Spatial Visualization and Inductive Learning

本科力学教学的创新方法强调开发教学工具以增强空间可视化和归纳学习

• 批准号: 9254129
• 负责人: C. Krousgrill
• 金额: $ 8万
• 依托单位: Purdue University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1993
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1993-02-15 至 1994-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9254129&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Creative; Approach; Teaching; Undergraduate; Mechanics

The primary objective of the proposed project is the development of a creative approach to the teaching of sophomore-level engineering mechanics courses which stimulates the students' thinking beyond a problem-solving level and helps students overcome fundamental deficiencies in their ability to conceptualize problems. The stimuli is to be supplied by adding both visual and hands-on components to the teaching and learning experience, two components which are known to be critical in the retention of learned material. Specifically, there are three distinct, yet interrelated, components to this proposal: development of graphical software emphasizing the visualization of relationships such as load distribution is static systems and force/motion relationships in dynamical systems: design and development of a mechanics toolbox consisting of basic building block components for individual experimentation by the students; and the development of more sophisticated in-class experimental demonstrations emphasizing the relations between qualitative and quantitative perspectives of static and dynamical systems. The immediate impact of these learning tools will be that students develop an improved physical insight, engineering relevancy and spatial visualization of mechanics problems. The long range impact of the usage of these tools will be to help capture the interest of the students at an early stage of their education thereby fostering an increased interest and enthusiasm in engineering. In addition, the proposed work will allow for exploration of problems from a perspective which encourages inductive learning, a learning style which is more natural for the students than the traditional deductive style. Critical review and evaluation of the proposed work will be conducted through formative evaluations by participating students and faculty, through a 2nd year evaluation workshop using external reviewers, and through quasi-experimental testing of student performance and long-term retention. Finally, deliverables from this work will be in the form of graphical software from the visualization component, a working mechanics toolbox set and development of experimental in-class demonstrations. These deliverables along with the pedological contributions of the research will be disseminated through technical publications, a summer workshop during the third year and a videotape summary of the project.

该项目的主要目标是开发一种创造性的大二工程力学课程教学方法，激发学生超越解决问题水平的思维，帮助学生克服概念化问题能力的基本缺陷。 通过在教学和学习体验中添加视觉和实践成分来提供刺激，这两个成分对于保留所学材料至关重要。 具体来说，该提案有三个不同但又相互关联的组成部分：开发图形软件，强调静态系统中的载荷分布和动态系统中的力/运动关系等关系的可视化；设计和开发由基本构建块组件组成的力学工具箱，供学生进行个人实验；以及开发更复杂的课堂实验演示，强调静态和动态系统的定性和定量观点之间的关系。 这些学习工具的直接影响将是学生提高物理洞察力、工程相关性和力学问题的空间可视化。 使用这些工具的长期影响将有助于在教育的早期阶段吸引学生的兴趣，从而提高对工程的兴趣和热情。 此外，拟议的工作将允许从鼓励归纳学习的角度探索问题，这种学习方式比传统的演绎方式对学生来说更自然。 对拟议工作的批判性审查和评估将通过参与学生和教师的形成性评估、使用外部评审员的第二年评估研讨会以及对学生表现和长期保留的准实验测试来进行。 最后，这项工作的交付成果将以图形软件的形式呈现，包括可视化组件、工作力学工具箱集和实验性课堂演示的开发。 这些成果以及研究的土壤学贡献将通过技术出版物、第三年的夏季研讨会和项目的录像带摘要进行传播。