(2023, April), How Cornstarch Monsters, The Mythbuster’s, and Rube Goldberg Collaborate to Create Drama and Enhance Student Motivation, Engagement, and Retention in the Classroom  Paper presented at 2023 ASEE PNW Section Conference, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington. 10.18260/1-2--44777

\bibitem{asee_peer_44777}
   (2023, April), \emph{How Cornstarch Monsters, The Mythbuster’s, and Rube Goldberg Collaborate to Create Drama and Enhance Student Motivation, Engagement, and Retention in the Classroom}
  Paper presented at 2023 ASEE PNW Section Conference, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington.
  10.18260/1-2--44777

.  "How Cornstarch Monsters, The Mythbuster’s, and Rube Goldberg Collaborate to Create Drama and Enhance Student Motivation, Engagement, and Retention in the Classroom".  2023 ASEE PNW Section Conference, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, 2023, April.  ASEE Conferences, 2023.  https://peer.asee.org/44777 Internet.  21 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_44777}
  .
  "How Cornstarch Monsters, The Mythbuster’s, and Rube Goldberg Collaborate to Create Drama and Enhance Student Motivation, Engagement, and Retention in the Classroom".
  \emph{2023 ASEE PNW Section Conference, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, 2023, April}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2023.
  https://peer.asee.org/44777 Internet.  21 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_44777
author = ""
title = "How Cornstarch Monsters, The Mythbuster’s, and Rube Goldberg Collaborate to Create Drama and Enhance Student Motivation, Engagement, and Retention in the Classroom"
booktitle = "2023 ASEE PNW Section Conference"
year = "2023"
month = "April"
address = "Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/44777}
number = {10.18260/1-2--44777}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Abstract Reviewed Presentation	
This abstract is to be considered for a presentation only (no full paper).  An effective teaching environment that motivates learning and student engagement is one that embraces enthusiasm, humor, spontaneity, variety, animated delivery, and most importantly, drama.  Drama is a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces.  The ability to stimulate strong positive emotions in students through the use of drama, elevates the outstanding teacher above the competent teacher.  Effective drama relies on surprise, suspense, storytelling, and competitions (Estes 2005). Each of these areas and associated example activities as applied in a sophomore level, Civil Engineering Fluid Mechanics class will be presented as follows: 
•	Surprise forces students to think critically and try to reason through unexpected events:
o	showing students that it is possible to walk on “water” by introducing corn starch and water as a Non-Newtonian fluid.  
•	Suspense happens over time and builds as an event unfolds, capturing the students imagination in anticipation of a result: 
o	bring in a bed of nails, leave it on full display, but wait to lay on it until the end of class to illustrate pressure is force per unit area. 
•	Storytelling does not require physical demonstrations, rather the drama lies in the story itself and how it unfolds: 
o	show an episode of Mythbuster’s to present a story and have the students work through a solution to the problem presented to verify the ending,
o	tell the tale of Tacoma Narrows Bridge (i.e., Gallopin Gertie) and how its redesign illustrated the validity of similitude between model and prototype. 
•	Competitions are a great recipe for tension, heightened emotion, and drama and they provide an opportunity for allowing students to really show what they have learned and illustrate their creativity and resourcefulness 
o	ask the students to design and build a Rube Goldberg Machine that runs mostly on fluid dynamics principles, with the winning machine being the one that incorporates the most complex principles and is successful in its operation. 
Course evaluation comments and unsolicited student feedback will be provided to illustrate the effectiveness of these activities at motivating and enhancing student learning. Overall, the goal of this presentation is to show how an instructor can incorporate drama in the classroom to enhance student interest, add emphasis to key concepts, improve retention of critical learning points, make students more attentive and receptive to learning, and create a tension that makes students want to come to class to learn more. 

Reference:
Estes, A. C. (2005) Teaching Lessons Learned: Shock and Awe in the Civil Engineering Classroom. ASCE Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice. 131(1): 1-5.

CY  - Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington
DA  - 2023/04/06
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - How Cornstarch Monsters, The Mythbuster’s, and Rube Goldberg Collaborate to Create Drama and Enhance Student Motivation, Engagement, and Retention in the Classroom
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/44777
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--44777
ER  -