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.
