Interactive Learning Tools: Animating Mechanics Of Materials

Computer-based instructional materials offer great potential for engineering education. A challenge that must be addressed in the successful use of this medium, however, is overcoming the students’ tendency toward passively receiving the instruction. Particularly in the impersonal domain of a student interacting with a computer, instructional materials must seek to actively engage students in the learning process. Well-designed software may engage students overtly – for example, requiring responses to questions, entering the results of calculations, or prompting for decisions – or indirectly in ways that are more intuitive such as the revealed insight of an expertly executed animation sequence. This paper presents examples of interactive learning tools being developed for the mechanics of materials course. These learning tools feature animations, graphics, and interactivity designed to engage and stimulate students, to effectively explain and illustrate course topics, and to build student problemsolving skills. Student reactions to these learning tools as well as observed changes in student performance are discussed.