Page 26.483.5Given/Find, Strategy, Governing Equations, Numerical Solutions, and Reflection, commonly usedin advanced mechanics courses and upper-division engineering courses at ERAU. In Given/Find,students are required to use appropriate variables and notations to represent what is given and whatis to be found. By relating given information to relevant principles, tentative strategies along withthe associated rationale are presented in Strategy, followed by governing equations. When a systemof independent equations for the equal number of unknowns is obtained, Matlab is used to findnumerical solutions. Finally, the problem solving is concluded by students’ reflection on theproblem by verifying the correctness of the solution and discussing
equations and calculations. The curricularmaterials developed in our workshop specifically target research-identified misconceptions, andare intended to help students distinguish between similar concepts.Lessons LearnedWe will present three general lessons we’ve learned through our collaboration and reflection. Inpresenting these findings we distinguish between researchers and instructors, but note that mostengineering educators perform some combination of the two roles. Additionally, we note thatmany of these lessons refer to commonly held intuitions about the interactions of research andpractice in education. We seek here to surface and further develop these intuitions intoproductive public discourse.1. We need to attend to the differences in
these activitieswas not only to allow students to express their reasoning, reflect on their thinking, andobtain feedback on their understanding; but also to “catch” unengaged and uncoveredpreconceptions. Several examples of in-class activities are shown in Figure 1 below. Page 26.1672.4 Free-Body Free-Body Shear Force and Bending Diagram Activity Diagram Activity Moment Diagram Activity
poorlyin subsequent courses.Traditionally, Statics has been taught in face-to-face lectures. The traditional lecture formatprevents the students from pausing to reflect and understand what is being explained and theymay often miss important points. A goal of Statics is to have students learn to solve problemsindependently, which is a practice-intensive and time-consuming effort for which the lecture canprovide guidance yet relatively little direct assistance. The traditional lecture is an instructor- Page 26.189.2centered, relatively passive method of learning. While lecturing still remains an effective andimportant way of conveying knowledge, it