Something Old,Something New: Integrating Engineering Practice into the Teaching of Engineering Mechanics

This paper presents a multifaceted method for teaching engineering mechanics designed to satisfy the following set of desiderata: (1) integrate engineering practice into the teaching of engineering science; (2) address a wide set of learning styles; (3) provide opportunities for practice in group work and learning; (4) promote communication and synthesizing skills; (5) engage students in the teaching and learning process; (6) maintain traditional achievement levels with respect to traditional measures; (7) motivate students to continue their engineering studies; and (8) maintain reasonable resource demands. Consistent with this variety of objectives, the approach presented here is composed of a variety of ingredients. In addition to the standard homework problems and exams, these ingredients include design projects, group work, basic competency exams, computational environments for simulating and visualizing phenomena, multimedia instructional tools, hands-on experiences, and student presentations. This educational model is intended to be suitable for teaching engineering mechanics in general, but this paper focuses on a particular sophomore-level mechanics of materials course in which the method has been implemented, refined over several years of classroom use, and tested relative to traditional approaches. The paper describes the and techniques that together make up the method, followed by summaries of the results of evaluations that have been applied to the course.