A Curriculum-spanning Review Video Library to Improve Retention of Prerequisite Course Material
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Mechanical Engineering
- Page Count
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11
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--33995
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/33995
- Download Count
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444
Paper Authors
Hope Leigh Weiss California State University, Fullerton
Dr. Hope L. Weiss is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at California State University, Fullerton. She earned her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Weiss' research focuses in the areas of nonlinear dynamics and chaos and engineering education. Her current research includes biomedical acoustics, active aerodynamic control systems, Tesla turbine design, and improving pre-requisite knowledge retention.
John W. Sanders California State University, Fullerton
Dr. John W. Sanders is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at California State University, Fullerton. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in Engineering Physics and Mathematics from Saint Louis University. His research interests include clean energy, solid mechanics, micromechanics of materials, fracture mechanics, and STEM education research.
Abstract
A weak foundation of prerequisite material can lead to poor understanding of new material and possible failure in subsequent courses. Often, students do not spend an adequate amount of time reviewing prerequisite material outside of class. In response, instructors often spend time reviewing prerequisite material during class at the expense of new topics. To address these issues, a Review Video Library (or RVL) has been created and additional videos are being added over time. The topics of the videos currently focus on prerequisite mathematics for upper-level engineering courses. While videos have long been used to teach new material and review previous material for individual courses, the present videos will eventually span the entire mechanical engineering curriculum, creating a unified structure that can be implemented by instructors at all levels. This paper presents a detailed assessment of the first two semesters in which the RVL has been implemented. Notably, one instructor was able to decrease the class time spent reviewing prerequisite course material by one entire 75-minute lecture during the first 5 weeks of the semester. At the same time, direct comparison of quiz grades across multiple semesters demonstrated significantly higher performance after the implementation of the RVL. Additionally, student surveys revealed that 100% of undergraduates who watched a video felt that watching the videos improved their understanding of that topic. Lessons learned during the process and ideas for future work are also presented.
Weiss, H. L., & Sanders, J. W. (2020, June), A Curriculum-spanning Review Video Library to Improve Retention of Prerequisite Course Material Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--33995
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