Conference Session

Flipped Classrooms in Mechanics

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rebecca Komarek, University of Colorado, Boulder; Angela R. Bielefeldt, University of Colorado, Boulder

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

leave science, mathematics, and engineering fields ofstudy was pedagogical – the mode of assessment and the design of curriculum were notadequately supporting students in learning8. A follow-up study is underway to learn why therehas been minimal improvement in the retention of students in these fields, despite efforts forinstructional improvement9. Retention improvements are consistent with the goals of the Engageto Excel report, which strategizes how to produce 1 million additional graduates with degrees inSTEM10.It is also important to note that while instructors may try to adopt evidence-based teachinginnovations, the quality with which they implement the innovation may vary significantly andtherefore may not result in improved student

Conference Session

Homework, Learning, and Problem Solving in Mechanics

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert O'Neill, Florida Gulf Coast University; Ashraf Badir P.E., Florida Gulf Coast University; Long Duy Nguyen P.E., Florida Gulf Coast University; Derek James Lura PhD, Florida Gulf Coast University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

Mines showed that students who used ME outperformed those students who used paper/pencilassignments8. A study in an operations management course indicated that randomized homeworkvalues can offer such benefits as (1) a significant practical and statistical impact on improvingexam scores, (2) reducing the rate of cheating, and (3) making homework a more accuratemeasure of student ability7. The goal of this paper is to provide a comparative assessment ofstudent performance on exams, summary students’ perceptions concerning ME and a summaryof lessons learned using ME in an engineering mechanics course.MethodsTwo sections of engineering mechanics in fall 2015 that used ME were the focus of this study(M1 and M2 in Table 1). When necessary

Conference Session

Mechanics of Materials

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jenn Stroud Rossmann, Lafayette College; Clive L. Dym, Harvey Mudd College; Lori Bassman, Harvey Mudd College

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

theconnections between solid and fluid mechanics by developing a spectrum of material behavior,as shown in Figure 1. This spectrum has the limiting behavior of Hookean solids and Newtonianfluids at its extremes, and all the complexities of “real” engineering materials, includingnonlinearity and viscoelasticity, in between. Students can thus recognize the extremes of thespectrum as representing idealizations (rather than the “norm,” as they might expect after twotraditional courses in “strength of materials” and “fluid mechanics”), and can see that thespectrum itself is continuous, explicitly connecting the various behaviors addressed in the course.This perspective is particularly valuable for students interested in biological applications, as thecomplex

Conference Session

Mechanics Division Poster Session

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Somnath Chattopadhyay, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

-section in which square grids were drawn along the faces of the specimen. Upon twistingthe specimens take the shape as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 Demonstration of warping in rubber specimens in torsionWarping was further demonstrated by using the membrane analogy. A steel plate with a squarehole was used. Rubber sheet was rigidly clamped at the edges of the hole and made to bulge byapplying pressure from beneath the plate. The resulting bulges (torsional hills) for the squarehole is shown in Figures 2. Page 26.1712.3 Figure 2 Torsion Hill for Square Cross Section

Conference Session

Teaching & Learning Dynamics, Vibration, and Mechanics More Broadly

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Roes Arief Budiman P.Eng., University of Calgary; Vishash Kumar Sharma

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

Paper ID #17345Combining Ordinary Differential Equations with Rigid Body Dynamics: Teach-ing a Second-year Engineering Dynamics Course to Two-year College Grad-uatesDr. Roes Arief Budiman P.Eng., University of Calgary Received PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at University of Toronto in 2001. Currently a Senior Instructor at University of Calgary and have been teaching Probability & Statistics for Engineers course in the past three years. Maintain a small research group (1 PhD, 1 MEng) on pipeline failure and reliability.Vishash Kumar Sharma c American Society for Engineering Education

Conference Session

Statics Online

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Carisa H. Ramming, Oklahoma State University; John J. Phillips, Oklahoma State University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

rising and the need for flexibility at theforefront, the professors decided it was time to embrace the task of establishing an online course.This enrollment trend for the course is outlined in Figure 1 where data from the last five years isreflected. It can be seen that the enrollment is trending upwards, and this continued growthovercame the resource capabilities of the university for presenting this course in a single setting.The facilities available allowed for enrollments of 330 in the fall semester and 216 for the springsemester. Markers are shown where separate offerings were introduced that allowed foradditional increases. Five Year Enrollment Trend 450

Conference Session

Explorations in Mechanics Pedagogy

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Shawn P. Gross, Villanova University; David W. Dinehart, Villanova University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

required mechanics sequence in a new integrated format to sophomores beginningwith the Fall 2009 semester. As shown in Table 1, the classical sequence of coursework insubjects of Statics, Dynamics, Mechanics of Solids, Fluid Mechanics, and Civil EngineeringMaterials was replaced with a series of three four credit courses. An overview of this curriculumrestructuring process is provided by Glynn et al.1 and Wadzuk et al.2 A Body of Knowledge(BOK) approach was used to identify the key concepts to be included in the three new courses.3 Page 26.780.2  Table 1 – Old and new mechanics curricula in CEE at Villanova University

Conference Session

Measuring Learning in Statics & Dynamics

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ning Fang, Utah State University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

representative set of student comments are also presented, which demonstrate howthe concept mapping approach helped students develop better conceptual understanding.IntroductionConcept mapping is a graphical tool for knowledge organization, representation, and elicitation.It has received growing attention and application in STEM (science, technology, engineering,and mathematics) disciplines as an effective instructional strategy to improve student conceptualunderstanding. 1, 2 In concept mapping, concepts are often arranged based on their hierarchicalrelationships to form a map, so students can visualize relationships among different concepts andunderstand the “big picture” of relevant topics. As such, concept maps have long been employedas an

Conference Session

Flipped Classrooms in Mechanics

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Luke S. Lee P.E., University of the Pacific; Rachelle Kisst Hackett, University of the Pacific; Hector Estrada, University of the Pacific

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

addressed in this study. (1) Do students participating in a flipped instructional delivery section of an engineering course learn more than those in a traditional lecture-based section of the same course? (2) After controlling for prior academic achievement (in general, using college GPA upon course entry) and initial levels of content-specific achievement (using pre-quizzes associated with each topic), do students participating in a flipped instructional delivery section of an engineering course perform better on content-specific achievement measures than those in a traditional section of the same course? Page

Conference Session

Mechanics Classroom Demonstrations

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Joel Alejandro Mejia, Angelo State University; Wade H Goodridge, Utah State University; Benjamin James Call, Utah State University - Engineering Education; Steven David Wood, Utah State University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

Newtonian mechanics that students utilize to analyze and design in future courses.However, studies have shown that students tend to have different misconceptions in statics. 1-5Statics remains one of the courses where achievement levels are sometimes not satisfactory,6even though it is one of the basic courses in engineering that forms the foundation for theengineering curriculum. One particularly challenging area for instructors is to show “intangible”mechanics principles that may seem too abstract for students. For instance, analysis of internalforces of members in a truss system may be easily procedurally calculated leading to a solutionthat may not have a true intuitive meaning for the student. Thus, visualization is necessary tohelp the

Conference Session

Teaching & Learning Dynamics, Vibration, and Mechanics More Broadly

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Shawn P. Gross, Villanova University; David W Dinehart, Villanova University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

past four years. In the Department of Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering alone, the entire five course sequence in mechanics and structures is now offered inthis format as indicated in Table 1. In all five of these courses, students are required to watchtheory-based lecture videos that are designed with the primary intent of preparing students forsolving problems in class. While the format and delivery of the lecture videos is similar, thestrategies for encouraging, ensuring, and rewarding students for watching videos vary among theindividual courses. Some courses give credit for viewing videos, and some courses use shortquizzes based on the lecture video content. The course that is the subject of the study in thispaper, Mechanics I, does not

Conference Session

Explorations in Mechanics Pedagogy

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Burkhardt Ph.D., U.S. Naval Academy

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

EM211-core students and 86 EM211-like students. The academic characteristics of the EM211-Core, EM211A and EM211-Like studentswere compared and are shown in Table 1. The table shows the mean data for the five academiccharacteristics considered in the logistic analysis as well as the statistical significance of thedifferences observed between the values of the at-risk groups (Sig). The data clearly show thepronounced difference between the entry and performance characteristics of the core not-at-riskgroup and the at-risk groups. Also importantly, the data show that the two at-risk groups(shaded) are significantly similar (Sig > 0.05) in 4 of the 5 categories. The characteristic with asignificant difference, SATM, is not surprising

Conference Session

Teaching & Learning Statics and Mechanics of Materials

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Sarah Baxter, University of St. Thomas; Bethany Fralick, University of South Carolina, Aiken

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

activity that addresses these challenges.Graphical Statics refers to methods that are based on the graphical method of adding vectors e.g.,force and position, to solve two-dimensional Statics problems. The aims of the paper are asfollows (1) to discuss how Graphical Statics fits into the context and criteria of active learningbased on definitions and existing research in the literature; (2) to review the fundamentaltechniques of graphical statics, including force triangles and funicular polygons; (3) to outline aseries/progression of concepts, in the order they appear in Statics curriculum, that can be solvedusing graphical techniques; and (4) to explore how the specific effects of these activities can beassessed.Active LearningActive learning is

Conference Session

Homework, Learning, and Problem Solving in Mechanics

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael K. Swanbom PE, Louisiana Tech University; Daniel William Moller, Louisiana Tech University; Katie Evans, Louisiana Tech University; Timothy Reeves, Louisiana Tech University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

-depth pure Statics content presented in the course. The result is that allstudents, regardless of engineering discipline, develop the knowledge needed to answerquestions like “how thick does this member need to be to avoid excessive stress?” or “how muchwill this part bend under a given force?” Students in Mechanical or Civil Engineering courses ofstudy take classesthat take themmuch deeper, butthe basic elementsfor understandingMechanics ofMaterials arecovered rigorouslyin this course.Table 1 shows abreakdown of theproblems that havebeen created forthe Statics andMechanics ofMaterials problemlibrary in a numberof categories. Table 1: Statics and Mechanics of Materials WeBWorK Library

Conference Session

Mechanics Classroom Demonstrations

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Eric Bell, Triton College, Ret.

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

quote him, if it was "theModified Bernoulli Equation, then is was no longer the Bernoulli Equation.") Learning in ascientific manner is commonly represented as extensions of already understood knowledge.An example of radical change occurred in the 16th century when Galileo worked to consolidatethe understanding of solid mechanics2. In one case prior to his involvement there was more thana little controversy about whether the bending stresses of cantilevered beams caused tension atthe top of the beam, or compression at the bottom as illustrated in Figure 1. It was during thistime that the two concepts were consolidated and explained. In this way, two previouslydisparate explanations for observed forces or loadings were replaced by a single

Conference Session

Mechanics of Materials

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jonathon E. Slightam, Marquette University; Mark L. Nagurka, Marquette University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

the experiments,which present students with a range of practical challenges requiring them to analyze, measure,design, and fabricate gears and gear systems. Activities in the experiments include: (1) identify-ing gear types (spur, helical, bevel, etc.) and appropriate applications (transmissions, differen-tials, gearmotors, etc.). (2) Disassembling and reassembling an automotive HVAC bafflesubassembly (with measurement of train ratios, and design and manufacturing questions relatedto its gears). (3) Disassembling and reassembling a kitchen mixer (with design and manufactur-ing questions related to its gears). (4) Designing the gear mechanism for driving the hands of aclock given an input speed, fabricating the gears of the clock via rapid

Conference Session

Measuring Learning in Statics & Dynamics

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Steven David Wood, Utah State University - Engineering Education; Wade H Goodridge, Utah State University; Benjamin James Call, Utah State University - Engineering Education; Thayne L Sweeten Ph.D., Department of Biology, Utah State University,

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

. It then gives an image of the same object after it has been rotated in aspecific fashion. The participant is then shown another image of a three-dimensional object andis asked to rotate it in the same manner as the first object. The answer is then selected out of fiveimages that are possible solutions, but only one of which is correct. An example question fromeach test is given here. The MCT question is presented first in Figure 1 and the PSVT:R ispresented next in Figure 2.Figure 1: Example problem from the MCT.Figure 2: Example problem from the PSVT:R (copyright, Purdue Research Foundation,1976, used with permission)A demographic survey targeting hobbies and previous experience, sex, and major was developedand given to students near the

Conference Session

Explorations in Mechanics Pedagogy

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Derek James Lura Ph.D., Florida Gulf Coast University; Robert James O'Neill, Florida Gulf Coast University; Ashraf Badir P.E., Florida Gulf Coast University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

bothcompletion and accuracy, and partial credit was awarded for both. For the homework, since alarger number of problems were submitted, only a selection of problems that were submittedwere assessed for each assignment. Table 1: Description of courses included in the study ID Assessment Term Class Period Instructor(s) N* H1 Homework Fall 2013 TR 8:00-10:45am A&B 37 H2 Homework Spring 2014 TR 8:00-10:45am A&C 32 Q1 Quizzes Fall 2014 WMF 8:00-9:50am A&C 35 Q2 Quizzes Fall 2014 MWF 11:00-12:50pm B 33*N is the number

Conference Session

Explorations in Mechanics Pedagogy

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Devlin Montfort, Oregon State University; Shane A. Brown P.E., Oregon State University; Charles E. Riley, Oregon Institute of Technology; Luciana R. Barroso, Texas A&M University; David G. Pollock P.E., George Fox University; Jennifer Light, Lewis & Clark College; Adam Lenz, Oregon State University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

curricularmaterials and pedagogies, which will in turn improve engineering education practice.OverviewThis paper will first briefly outline the context of this collaboration by describing: (1) the generalapproach to adoption that informed the development of the collaboration, and (2) the theoreticalframework of the research that inspired the curricular materials. Note that this project isongoing. For a summary of our previous findings on student understanding (as well as ourrecommendations for instructors), see1–3,7,8, and for our research exploring adoption moregenerally see 7,9,10.Our collaboration was built on a two-day, in-person workshop involving six researchers and 15engineering instructors. Participants formed small groups with at least one

Conference Session

Flipped Classrooms in Mechanics

Collection

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mark H. Holdhusen, University of Wisconsin, Marathon County

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Mechanics

inthe rest of the course. In order to determine if the “flipped” course actually improved student learning, finalexam scores from the first offering were compared with the final exam scores from the fiveprevious semesters the course was taught by the instructor. For standardization, the final examconsisted of questions taken from the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. Table 1 shows theaverage scores (out of 100) and standard deviations from the first “flipped” offering as well theprevious offerings from the instructor. As can be seen, the average score was essentiallyunchanged between the two groups going from 82.8 to 82.7. The standard deviations were alsopretty similar in both groups. While these results suggest the “flipped” course had