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

拟议项目的主要目标是发展 建筑工程类课程教学的创新 力学课程，激发学生的思维超越 解决问题的水平，帮助学生克服基本 他们对问题概念化的能力不足。 的 刺激是通过增加视觉和动手提供 教学经验的两个组成部分 这是众所周知的关键，在保留学习 材料 具体来说，有三个不同的，但 相互关联的组成部分： 强调关系可视化的图形软件 例如静态系统和力/运动载荷分布 动力系统中的关系： 力学工具箱，由基本构建块组件组成， 学生的个人实验;以及 更复杂的课堂实验演示，强调 定性与定量的关系 静态和动态系统。 这些直接影响 学习工具将是学生发展一个改善的身体 洞察力，工程相关性和空间可视化 力学问题。 使用这些工具的长期影响 工具将有助于捕捉学生的兴趣， 教育的早期阶段，从而促进增加 对工程学的兴趣和热情。 此外，拟议的 工作将允许从一个角度探索问题 它鼓励归纳学习，这种学习方式 对于学生来说比传统的演绎风格自然。 将对拟议工作进行严格审查和评价， 通过参与学生的形成性评价进行 和教师，通过第二年的评估研讨会，使用外部 通过对学生的准实验测试， 性能和长期保留。 最后， 这项工作将在图形软件的形式，从 可视化组件，工作力学工具箱集， 实验性课堂演示的发展。 这些 可交付成果沿着， 将通过技术出版物传播研究成果， 第三年的夏季讲习班和录像带摘要 该项目

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.