Student Feedback And Lessons Learned From Adding Laboratory Experiences To The Reinforced Concrete Design Course

In an effort to demonstrate lecture course material, a class project was added to the senior level Reinforced Concrete Design course that incorporated beam testing. The concept of beam testing is not new. Many universities test reinforced concrete beams in flexure and in shear. What sets this experience apart is the effort to coordinate beam testing with lecture topics, the types of failures illustrated, and requiring the students to illustrate in the laboratory a concept they learned in the classroom. For most semesters, beams were cast and tested to illustrate tension and compression controlled failures, shear failures, and finally inadequate splice length failure. Once their beams were tested, the students were required to prepare a project report. Overall, most student responses were positive in nature. Typical student responses were centered on lessons learned in the laboratory, such as tying steel, that are not covered in classroom lectures. Also presented in the paper are lessons learned from the faculty members’ point of view, along with several areas of improvement for the project.