Comprehensive Course Redesign: Introduction to the Mechanics of Materials

Convergence of multiple patterns necessitates significant new directions in redesigning and teaching courses in the area of solid mechanics for undergraduate engineering students. Growing applications of polymeric, biological, and geological materials Promising approaches to teaching Key differences in behaviors of polymers and biological materials when compared with traditional engineering materials like steel, concrete, and wood Lack of understanding of more than one measure of stress and strain and their Relationships to different failure criteria. Packed Courses Together, these patterns require that the mechanics community identify and advocate new approaches to teaching undergraduate solid mechanics. New approaches to course design and teaching are required to address these multiple challenges. One opportunity for course redesign is the mechanics of materials course taken by sophomore or junior mechanical engineering students, which is a pivotal course in undergraduate curricula for mechanical engineering students. In redesigning the course, the faculty member that redesigned the course identified a set of learning outcomes by focusing on core ideas for the course and then used Bloom‘s taxonomy to articulate three different levels of achievement: Level of Achievement Calculate/identify