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Five-minute Demo: Developing an Intuitive Understanding of Support Reactions Using an Interactive Teaching Activity

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Best in 5 Minutes: Demonstrating Interactive Teaching Activities

Tagged Division

Civil Engineering

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37197

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37197

Download Count

292

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Paper Authors

biography

Tonya Lynn Nilsson P.E. Santa Clara University

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Tonya Nilsson is a Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering at Santa Clara University (SCU), where she regularly facilitates pedagogical training for other faculty. In 2020, Tonya received the School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award and the SCU Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence. Prior to joining SCU, Tonya was an Associate Professor at CSU - Chico.

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Abstract

The ability to quickly and accurately find support reactions for simply supported beams is essential for students moving forward in the fundamental mechanics courses in civil and mechanical engineering degree programs. Students who simply try to memorize a procedure lack the insight to assess the validity of their answers and typically struggle on problems with unique loadings. To help statics students develop a more intuitive understanding of how loads distribute in a simply supported beam, an interactive teaching activity was developed that combines physical behaviors with numerical calculations. Students use a standard wooden ruler, which is simply supported on each end by small digital scales, a set of small weights and a series of guided activities to first estimate, then calculate, and finally physically observe the portion of a load carried at each end of the loaded ruler as indicated by the scales. Students progress from single point loads to triangulated distributed loads and prove superposition approaches are valid through the process. This paper provides images of the activity set-up along with the handout students receive to guide them through the lesson.

Nilsson, T. L. (2021, July), Five-minute Demo: Developing an Intuitive Understanding of Support Reactions Using an Interactive Teaching Activity Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37197

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