The Purposeful Use of Activities to Affect Learning

Demonstrations are often used by educators to engage students and increase their retention of material and ability to synthesize and apply concepts to new situations. However, the effectiveness of such demonstrations is hindered by students’ tendency to compartmentalize concepts. We hypothesized that students who participated in purposeful activities designed to reinforce and build upon such demonstrations would demonstrate an increased ability synthesize the concepts and apply them to new situations. To test our hypothesis, we worked with two different class sections of Mechanics of Materials, both taught by the same instructor, and both covering the same material at the same pace. Both sections participated in preliminary demonstrations and recorded their observations. Subsequently students in the test section participated in additional follow-up activities while students in the control section did not. Last, both the test section and the control section participated in a final materials test. Performance differences between the two pedagogical methods were assessed through a set of questions asking students in both sections to identify and explain the relationships of interest. Assessment results did not uphold the hypothesis. While only a small number of students in either section correctly identified and explained the relationships of interest, the number of students in the test section to do so was half the number of students in the control section. In addition, most of students in both the test section and the control section had difficulty appropriately synthesizing the various concepts applicable to the final materials test. Confounding factors that may have contributed to these results are discussed. In addition, suggestions are presented to guide further study of how activities can be better used to integrate understanding of concepts.