Course Redesign ePortfolio Showcase

I propose to integrate computer- and experiment-based activities in these classes. For example, multimedia technologies like the "MasteringEngineering" will provide students with tutorial homework problems to emulate the instructor's office-hour environment and provide feedback specific to their errors. Additionally, I will design experiment-based assignments, so students, through interaction with physical models, will significantly enhance their understanding and retention of topics presented in the course.

Dynamics is a foundational course for almost all engineering students. We deal with over 600 students from various engineering majors take this class every year with a high failure rate. Our objective is to improve student learning and their performance by using a redesign strategy that would provide more and better opportunities for students to learn. Our approach for redesign integrates technology and pedagogy. Our redesign strategy incorporates all the best practices we have developed in our earlier course redesign projects. Specifically our redesign course structure includes, 1) short introductory video discussing the relevance and application of a concept, 2) practical examples, 3) in-class discussion on concepts and examples from the video, 4) Simulation/Experiments, and narrated examples & derivations (longer videos).

This course serves as apre-requisites to many important senior-level ME core courses in the curriculum such as Mechanical Vibrations, Mechanical Measurements, Control Systems, and Acoustics and Noise Control. Failure of this course will impede students' educational path towards graduation. It is observed that students often have a hard time visualizing abstract concepts.This course is mathematically intense, and thus create additional challenges. The objective of this proposal is to enhance students' learning through use of simulation software and technology to assist students in understanding and visualizing course concepts, and thus to shorten time to degree and increase graduation rate of Mechanical Engineering students.

The focus is to increase accessibility to ME 105 in order to help students finish their degree in a timely manner. Currently one of the sections is an evening offering which ends at 8:45 pm. This late offering interferes with (i) the student's work schedule; most of them work in order to supplement their college costs or (ii) their ability to take other classes offered during daytime hours of the following day especially if they have a long commute to and from campus. The goal of this project is to create a virtual lab environment that adopts "two tracks of online and in-person labs alternating every week."