Interactive Multimedia Labware For Civil Engineering Curricula

A website and CD-ROM based laboratory manual for the Environmental Engineering and Mechanics of Materials Laboratories is being developed as a collaborative NSF-funded project between the Civil Engineering Department and the Interactive Multimedia Program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. This presentation will be an overview the preliminary development and a summary of the formative assessment during the first semester of the two-year project. The labware is intended to enhance student learning through the development of and exposure to richer learning tools, resources, and advanced technologies. The pedagogy promoted by our approach is to engage students in active learning. The approach is to develop an interactive multimedia program for the laboratory component of the courses, which in turn strengthens the bridge between application and classroom theory. For laboratories equipped with the appropriate equipment, the labware is designed with the expectation that students review various aspects of the CD at different stages of the learning process. Prior to attending laboratory, students will be expected to review the basic concepts of the theory and to experience a “virtual lab” prior to their hands-on experience. After the experiment, students can use the labware to understand data reduction and data analysis in addition to accessing additional sets of experimental data. This additional data can include data from the same material measured in the laboratory in order to understand statistics or data resulting from varying parameter conditions. In the case of equipment failure or poor experimental controls and/or data collection by the students, the additional data will allow students to complete data reduction and data analysis critical to the link between the theory and the application of the experiments. For laboratories that do not have access to state-of-the-art equipment, the students can still investigate and link the theory, experimental methods, data collection, and data reduction and analysis. In terms of assessment, there is a positive overall response to the use of the labware, even at this preliminary stage.