A Remedy For The Statics Condition

Historically, Engineering Mechanics/Statics has always been a difficult course for engineering students. The course is central to the entire curriculum in both Civil and Mechanical Engineering. Many courses in the curriculum build on the concepts of Statics. It requires an understanding of the basic principles of Mechanics as well as the ability to visualize objects in two and three dimensions. Central to the course, it requires the student to master the many techniques for problem solving. These techniques require the mastery of vector algebra and a solid background in trigonometry, which is often lacking. Finally, each week of the course builds on the mastery of the work from previous weeks. The student must keep pace with the course – there is no catch-up. Statics has never been a student favorite at the University. Students prefer to use formulas that they can plug-and-chug. They are resistant to analyzing. Vector cross products has them seeing cross-eyed and dot products has them dumbfounded. As a result, there was a high drop rate in the course. Students attempted to take the course without doing the time-consuming homework required to master the material. This resulted in high failure rate of those that remained in the course. It was time to rethink the approach to teaching this course with emphasis on student effort. A lecture/recitation format is now used for the day sections. All mechanics classes meet for a multimedia lecture that presents the concepts with vivid graphics and quasi-animation. Then individual sections meet separately for the hands-on application complete with props for the recitation. The key to the success, however, is the cooperation of the students with major use of the internet for communication. The results have been a marked decrease in the withdrawal rate and those remaining in the course are demonstrating greater understanding of the material. I. Background Approximately thirty and forty years ago, the authors were sophomores taking Statics. Before taking this course, students were required to take a four-credit course in Physics that was at least fifty percent Statics. The Statics course was also four credits with a homework load that is double that which is required by today's students. The scope of the material covered was not significantly different than the current curriculum but was non-vectorial with emphasis on free Page 692.1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education body diagrams and the understanding of visualizing problems. In earlier years, engineering students were required to take a two-semester engineering graphics course in their freshman year. Descriptive geometry clarified the meanings of parallel, perpendicular, projection, and angles. The hours spent in carefully constructing the graphics exercises in descriptive geometry prepared the student for the meticulous type of work expected of an engineer. It set the tone for learning by doing. It also helped with visualization. Today’s engineering student has a brief experience with engineering graphics with emphasis on computer aided drafting and three-dimensional design software tools. Very little hand drawing is required of today’s engineering student. Physics has changed with less application toward the area of Statics. Emphasis on software tools and programmable calculators has eliminated the need for a student to fully understand concepts while cranking out answers by guessing which formula fits the data given in the problem. The art of thinking through a problem seems to have been lost to the technology we impose on them. As a result, there is a high drop rate for the Statics course as students tend to withdraw as soon as they are faced with a challenge. Students attempt to take the course without doing the time consuming homework required to learn the material. With a new generation of high-tech, video-oriented students, a whole new approach to teaching an age-old topic was necessary. The material is the same, but the presentation has changed. II. The Approach in the Lecture All students enrolled in Statics today will attend a class once a week en masse for the lecture portion of the course. The students are encouraged to read ahead in their textbook, then to attend the lecture and primarily listen, taking minimal notes. This is a novel approach going to class and just listening. Students have been conditioned to take very detailed notes. But how much can they hear or understand if they are busy trying to copy notes from a chalkboard? It is more important for them to absorb the concepts being presented in the lecture portion. Giving their full attention to watching and listening is better than hurriedly trying to take notes and capturing only a fraction of the lecture. This is accomplished by having the diagrams of the material covered in lecture available for download from the course web site. It enables the student to obtain high quality notes without extensive writing. A typical example of the internet diagram and the problem as shown in class follows.