Work In Progress: Assessing Student Performance and Perceptions in a “Flipped” Statics and Mechanics Engineering Course

Louis Reis; Samira Fazel Anvaryazdi

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Conference: 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Tampa, Florida
Publication Date: June 15, 2019
Start Date: June 15, 2019
End Date: June 19, 2019
Conference Session: Mechanical Engineering Division Technical Session 6
Tagged Division: Mechanical Engineering
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--33595
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/33595
Download Count: 370

Paper Authors

biography

Louis Reis Louisiana Tech University

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Dr. Louis Reis currently serves as a lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering department at Louisiana Tech University. He received his B.S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Louisiana Tech University along with his M.S. degree in Microsystems Engineering and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. He teaches a variety of courses at Louisiana Tech including: Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Statics and Mechanics of Materials, and the “Living with the Lab” freshmen engineering courses. He is also currently involved in research on microfluidics and biosensors.

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biography

Samira Fazel Anvaryazdi Louisiana Tech University

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Dr. Samira Fazel Anvaryazdi is a visiting assistant professor in Statistics and Industrial Engineering at Louisiana Tech University. She received her PhD in Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE) at Wayne State University (2018). Prior to her Ph.D. studies, she strengthened her academic research background by obtaining two Master’s degrees in mathematical statistics involving continuous time stochastic inventory model from Wayne State University (2012) as well as in pure mathematics concerning proximal point algorithm on Riemannian manifolds from Isfahan University (2008). This has provided her with a solid foundation in mathematics and has motivated her to apply her theoretical knowledge to real-world applications such as healthcare. Throughout her academic career, she has accumulated nearly ten years of teaching experience in mathematics and statistics. She also regularly follows teaching and learning events at Office of Teaching & Learning (OTL) and NIH B.E.S.T. workshops as well as OTL Pedagogy Journal Club and Pedagogy Teaching Workshop across multiple Universities. She also won the 2017 GEOC (Graduate Employees Organizing Committee) Teaching Award at Wayne State University. In 2018, she won Integrating Curriculum with Entrepreneurial Mindset (ICE) - KEEN ICE Award and joined a KEEN Innovative Teaching (KIT) faculty member and become part of a unique cohort of faculty who are committed to improving engineering education. The overall goal of her Ph.D. research is to improve healthcare operations through systems engineering and optimization while focusing on operations and health outcome metrics. Going forward, she plans to continue and broaden this research in support of two overall goals: maximizing the long-run average daily net profit of a medical system from business perspective as well as quality of life from human being aspect. She believes teaching is a very challenging and promising effort. At the end of each class, instructors grew students not only grasped the course materials but also know how to apply their knowledge in practical applications which is the most exciting parts of being an instructor.

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Abstract

Emerging technology and educational resources have made it easier and beneficial to create active learning environments in university courses. Tools such as online textbooks and homework systems and pre-recorded instructional videos can help substitute traditional instructor lectures with more student-engaged learning such as small group and class-led discussions, hands-on activities, physical demonstrations, and small lab assignments. These active learning techniques have been shown to improve student performance and student engagement within a class. In order for these activities to become part of an already full course curriculum, either the curriculum must be altered or reduced to allow for such activities, or traditional instruction in the form of class lectures must be delivered outside of class in order to free up time for more active learning activities. This work-in-progress aims to implement and evaluate a flipped-classroom approach to address the need to free up time within the allotted class time in order to make available more hands-on activities and in-class labs during scheduled class time in future course offerings. In the flipped-classroom environment, students are given lecture materials (that are normally presented in class) before and outside of the schedule class time. This in turn, frees up time in class to engage students using more active-learning strategies. In this study, two different class sections of a statics and mechanics course were studied; one section was instructed using traditional lecture-style notes during class times, and the other section was “flipped” where the lecture notes were posted for students to read before class and instead of listening to a lecturer were presented with a number of additional examples and problems that promoted small group and class discussions. Common topical daily quizzes were administered to both sections to ascertain short-term retention of course material. Common exams were given to determine if one test group retained or understood the course content better. Both test groups were given post-course surveys to gauge student perception on traditional lecture materials and on active learning. The flipped classroom were also asked to critique their experiences with the flipped-classroom arrangement. We hope this study will allow us to identify what strategies best help students in this particular course. In the near future, our institution will be receiving large amounts of useful resources that we desire to integrate into the course without compromising the curriculum. This study should determine if a flipped-classroom approach will allow us to progress with introducing active hands-on assignments into the course without removing part of the course curriculum.

Citation
Format

Reis, L., & Fazel Anvaryazdi, S. (2019, June), Work In Progress: Assessing Student Performance and Perceptions in a “Flipped” Statics and Mechanics Engineering Course Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--33595

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Emerging technology and educational resources have made it easier and beneficial to create active learning environments in university courses. Tools such as online textbooks and homework systems and pre-recorded instructional videos can help substitute traditional instructor lectures with more student-engaged learning such as small group and class-led discussions, hands-on activities, physical demonstrations, and small lab assignments. These active learning techniques have been shown to improve student performance and student engagement within a class. In order for these activities to become part of an already full course curriculum, either the curriculum must be altered or reduced to allow for such activities, or traditional instruction in the form of class lectures must be delivered outside of class in order to free up time for more active learning activities.  
This work-in-progress aims to implement and evaluate a flipped-classroom approach to address the need to free up time within the allotted class time in order to make available more hands-on activities and in-class labs during scheduled class time in future course offerings. In the flipped-classroom environment, students are given lecture materials (that are normally presented in class) before and outside of the schedule class time. This in turn, frees up time in class to engage students using more active-learning strategies. 
In this study, two different class sections of a statics and mechanics course were studied; one section was instructed using traditional lecture-style notes during class times, and the other section was “flipped” where the lecture notes were posted for students to read before class and instead of listening to a lecturer were presented with a number of additional examples and problems that promoted small group and class discussions. Common topical daily quizzes were administered to both sections to ascertain short-term retention of course material. Common exams were given to determine if one test group retained or understood the course content better. Both test groups were given post-course surveys to gauge student perception on traditional lecture materials and on active learning. The flipped classroom were also asked to critique their experiences with the flipped-classroom arrangement.
We hope this study will allow us to identify what strategies best help students in this particular course. In the near future, our institution will be receiving large amounts of useful resources that we desire to integrate into the course without compromising the curriculum. This study should determine if a flipped-classroom approach will allow us to progress with introducing active hands-on assignments into the course without removing part of the course curriculum. 

AU  - Louis Reis
AU  - Samira Fazel Anvaryazdi
CY  - Tampa, Florida
DA  - 2019/06/15
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work In Progress: Assessing Student Performance and Perceptions in a “Flipped” Statics and Mechanics Engineering Course
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/33595
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--33595
ER  -