Rationale and Design Approach for Full-scale Experiential Learning Opportunities in Structural Engineering
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
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Are You Experienced? Approaches and Tools for Experiential Learning
- Tagged Division
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Civil Engineering
- Page Count
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26
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--35119
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/35119
- Download Count
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267
Paper Authors
J Chris Carroll P.E.
Saint Louis University, Parks College of Engineering
orcid.org/0000-0001-9250-8503
Dr. Carroll is an Assistant Professor and the Civil Engineering Program Coordinator in Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at Saint Louis University. His experimental research interests focus on reinforced and prestressed concrete, while his engineering education research interests focus on experiential learning at both the university and K-12 levels. Dr. Carroll is the chair of ACI Committee S802 - Teaching Methods and Educational Materials and he has been formally engaged in K-12 engineering education for nearly ten years.
Matthew D. Lovell P.E. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Matthew Lovell is an Associate Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and he currently serves as the Senior Director of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment office. He is also serving as the director of the Making Academic Change Happen (MACH) program. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University, and he holds his PE license in Indiana. Matt is very active with respect to experimentation in the classroom. He greatly enjoys problem-based learning and challenge-based instruction. Matt is the 2018 recipient of the American Concrete Institute’s Walter P. Moore, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award. He was awarded Teacher of the Year for the Illinois Indiana section of ASEE in 2017. Also, he was awarded the Daniel V. Terrell Outstanding Paper Award from ASCE. Matt is highly active in ASEE, currently serving as the ASEE CE Division’s Freshman Director. In 2014, Matt received the ASEE CE Division Gerald R. Seeley Award for a paper highlighting a portion of his work regarding the development of a Master’s Degree at Rose-Hulman.
Kyle Kershaw P.E. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Dr. Kyle Kershaw is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Kyle's primary teaching duties include courses in geotechnical engineering and construction materials. His research interests include behavior and monitoring of in-place foundations and retaining structures. In addition to his teaching and research duties, Kyle is involved in geotechnical consulting and Engineers Without Borders.
Shannon M. Sipes Indiana University
Shannon Sipes serves as the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning program Director and Lead Instructional Consultant in the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. In this position she provides professional development programming & support to faculty on their own teaching and student learning. Additionally, she consults on assessment, DBER, and other forms of teaching & learning research. Her disciplinary background is in experimental psychology as well as curriculum & instruction with a focus on higher education.
Ronaldo Luna Saint Louis University, Parks College of Engineering
Ronaldo Luna is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Saint Louis University. He received his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1995. His research interests include: engineering education, geotechnical earthquake engineering, GIS, and hazard mitigation.
Address: Parks College, 3450 LIndell Blvd., St. Louis, Missouri 63103
Telephone: (+1) 314-977-8372; Email: rluna@slu.edu
John Aidoo Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Dr. Aidoo is currently an Professor of Civil Engineering Department at Rose-Hulman Institute Technology. Prior to this appointment, he worked as the Bridge Design Engineer at South Carolina Department of Transportation. He received a B.Sc. from the University of Science & Technology in Ghana in 1997 and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina. His research activities include repair and strengthening of buildings and bridges using Advanced Composite Materials, laboratory and field testing of structures and the fatigue behavior of concrete bridges.
James H. Hanson P.E. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Dr. James Hanson is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. His teaching emphasis is structural analysis and design. Over the last fifteen years he has conducted research on teaching students how to evaluate the reasonableness of their results. He is the recipient of several best paper awards and teaching awards including the American Concrete Institute’s Young Member Award for Professional Achievement and the Walter P. Moore Jr. Faculty Award. He also received the Ferdinand P. Beer and E. Russell Johnston, Jr., Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award from the Mechanics Division of ASEE.
Professor Hanson brings four years of military and industry experience to the classroom. Upon completing his Ph.D. in structural engineering at Cornell University, he taught for two years at Bucknell University. He is a registered Professional Engineer.
Abstract
Full-scale testing can be a powerful form of experiential learning in structural engineering courses. Most curricula focus on the proverbial “nuts and bolts” of structural engineering by teaching students to calculate forces and displacements along with member capacities. Pictures, videos, simulations, and small-scale projects are sometimes used to illustrate structural behavior. However, students regularly struggle to grasp structural behavior whether that is simply sketching a deflected shape or describing failure mechanisms. Rather than passively experiencing structural element or system behavior through pictures, videos, simulations, and small-scale projects, full-scale testing provides students with a first-hand, lasting understanding of fundamental behavior. Additionally, students also gain invaluable perspectives often difficult to glean from traditional classroom instruction such as constructability and tolerance issues. Full-scale testing is essential for student understanding of structural engineering concepts and there is a significant need for well-organized experiential learning opportunities with appropriate scales that successfully illustrate structural behavior.
This paper provides the rationale and design approach for full-scale experiential learning opportunities in structural engineering. The rational of the project is based on faculty’s observations related to student understanding of structural behavior in Structural Analysis, Reinforced Concrete Design, Steel Design, and Foundation Design courses further reinforced by survey data regarding students’ perception of the most difficult topics to understand in each course. The design approach of the experiential learning modules highlights several factors including desired structural behavior, scale, testing capabilities, and implementation feasibility. The paper concludes with brief descriptions of thirteen experiential learning modules developed for the four courses to improve student understanding of structural behavior.
Carroll, J. C., & Lovell, M. D., & Kershaw, K., & Sipes, S. M., & Luna, R., & Aidoo, J., & Hanson, J. H. (2020, June), Rationale and Design Approach for Full-scale Experiential Learning Opportunities in Structural Engineering Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35119
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