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Session 3238

Enhancing Engineering Graphics Courses Through Animated, Sophisticated, Multi-Media, Graphical Presentations

Dr. Wafeek S. Wahby

Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois

Abstract

Exploring new instructional methods that use technology tools adds an important aspect to the cognitive abilities and visualization skills of on-campus undergraduate students. This paper presents visual examples from an ongoing experiment that was started in 1998 at the School of Technology, Eastern Illinois University to study the effectiveness of the “show-and-tell-and-let-apply” (SATALA) approach adopted by the author for his Engineering Graphics lectures, using some features of Microsoft PowerPoint software.

Microsoft PowerPoint software capabilities can be used to create simple but effective, animated, multi-media, graphical presentations that enhance students’ visualization skills and give them the know-how to hand-solve a variety of projection problems, geometric shapes drawings, and Descriptive Geometry concepts, in an easy and affordable way.

From hand-drawing geometric shapes such as ellipses, to hand-solving Descriptive Geometry problems such as piercing points, students’ comprehension of subject matter as well as their problem solving ability are greatly enhanced through the “show-and-tell- and-let-apply” (SATALA) approach in lecturing. Students’ better comprehension of the subject matter is reflected in surveys conducted, as well as in students’ performance and superior grades. A balanced merging of hand drawing with computer drawing seems to give students the best of both worlds.

A recent market survey showed that using Microsoft PowerPoint software capabilities in this kind of application appears not to have been explored before in that particular way. Discussions with students, publishers, and colleagues in academia provide assertions of the potential effectiveness of using this kind of multimedia presentations in delivering Engineering Graphics courses.

Preparing SATALA PowerPoint slides for Engineering Graphics courses is a very time consuming process. However, any time and effort invested in it, pays high dividends in the many students who get a better understanding of the subject matter which, in turn, improves their performance during their college years, and later in the work place.

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Wahby, W. (2002, June), Enhancing Engineering Graphics Courses Through Animated, Sophisticated, Multi Media, Graphical Presentations Paper presented at 2002 Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. 10.18260/1-2--11247