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Enhance the Effectiveness of Teaching Geotechnical Engineering Courses using Various Design and Analysis Programs

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Conference

2017 ASEE Mid Atlantic Section Spring Conference

Location

Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland

Publication Date

April 7, 2017

Start Date

April 7, 2017

End Date

April 8, 2017

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--29254

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/29254

Download Count

665

Paper Authors

biography

Lei Wang University of the District of Columbia

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Dr. Lei Wang is an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of the District of Columbia. He received his PhD in Civil Engineering from Clemson University in 2013. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in California.

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Abstract

Enhance the Effectiveness of Teaching Geotechnical Engineering Courses using Various Design and Analysis Programs

Lei Wang, University of the District of Columbia Ahmet Zeytinci, University of the District of Columbia

The design and analysis programs have been more and more widely used in geotechnical engineering practice, especially for analyzing complicated geotechnical engineering problems. Many employers prefer their job candidates who have experiences using these geotechnical design and analysis programs. There is a need for incorporating these programs into the teaching of geotechnical undergraduate courses to prepare the civil engineering graduates meeting the challenges faced by the civil engineering community. This paper reviews the commonly geotechnical design and analysis programs used in the practice and discussed about a few strategies how to integrate these current commercially available geotechnical programs into the common taught geotechnical courses to stimulate the students’ interest, enhance the teaching effectiveness and develop the students’ problem-solving skills. By adopting these strategies and pedagogical methods, students would develop the appreciation for the soil mechanics theory they learned in the class, learn how to abstract a real world project into a numerical model, and connect the theory with geotechnical practice for various geotechnical design problems. Some of the projects from these classes can further be developed into undergraduate research projects by combing the numerical modeling of complicated geotechnical problems with various research techniques.

Wang, L. (2017, April), Enhance the Effectiveness of Teaching Geotechnical Engineering Courses using Various Design and Analysis Programs Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Mid Atlantic Section Spring Conference, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--29254

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