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Development of an assessment procedure for integration of mathematical and CAE tools in engineering courses

Abstract

In a previous study1 the authors presented the teaching and learning experiences of integrating mathematical and CAE tools in three example undergraduate engineering courses taught at three different universities by three different instructors who share similar teaching philosophies. Integration of mathematical tools such as MATLAB, MathCAD, and Excel, and the CAE packages such as Unigraphics2 are found to be very effective teaching and learning strategies for better understanding of the relevant course material where such tools can be incorporated. The three example courses are: Machine Component Design, (taught at Kettering University using Excel and other CAE/FEA tools), Computational and Experimental course (taught at Saginaw Valley State University using MATLAB), and Dynamic Systems and Controls (taught at Baker College using MathCAD). All these are 4-credit courses. The outcome of the previous study proved to be useful as evidenced by the student performance in these courses.

Based on the experiences of the previous studies, in this paper an assessment procedure is developed to study its impact on the early implementation of those tools from the beginning of teaching of these same courses as mentioned above. One of the measures of the effectiveness of the developed assessment procedure utilizes the overall performance of the students in those courses. It is hoped that such a procedure can be used to enhance the teaching and assessment of these or other similar courses.

Introduction

The following sections outline the teaching and assessment experiences of three different instructors in three separate courses. Based on the focused idea of using teaching tools, preliminary assessment procedure is suggested. There are numerous studies conducted in this direction by many researchers3, for example, papers presented in ASEE-IEEE Conferences.

Course 1: Machine Design I (Taught at Kettering University)

Course Description: This course is a first course in Mechanical Component Design with pre-requisites of Mechanics of Materials and Statics. Pre-requisite knowledge test in Statics is given at the beginning of the course to reinstate the importance of understanding of free body diagrams. Thus, the Machine Design course deals more with application of the theory and concepts learned in the mechanics sequence, namely, equilibrium of rigid bodies and free body diagrams to design and/or to select mechanical components. Design standards (such as ANSI, AGMA, etc.) are used in depth in this course and the students are advised to adhere to these standards while designing the components. They are also expected to use

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Echempati, R., & Mahajerin, E., & Sala, A. (2009, June), Development Of An Assessment Procedure For Integration Of Mathematical And Cae Tools In Engineering Courses Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--5674