An Innovative Redesign of Statics: Approach and Lessons Learned

Statics has been traditionally a difficult course as measured by student passing rate (the percentage of students getting a C or better). At Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the passing rate of students enrolled in Statics for the previous 5 years has been less than 60%. Since Statics is a required course for students majoring in aerospace engineering, civil engineering, construction engineering, industrial engineering, and mechanical engineering, improving the teaching and learning effectiveness of Statics can have a major impact on retention by virtue of the large number of students affected. Studies have shown that students benefit when they are actively engaged in the learning process and they are active participants in the classroom, as opposed to passively listening to lectures. This paper describes a course redesign of Statics aimed to improve student learning and success. Traditionally Statics has been taught in either three 50-minute or two 75-minute lecture format. The redesigned course is hybrid, combing traditional classroom lectures and flipped classroom activities. Each week the course has a 50-minute traditional lecture, a 50-minute recitation session, and a 170-minute recitation session. In the recitation sessions, students solve a set of problems assigned by the instructor and the answers they submit are instantly graded. During the process, they received prompt feedback and answers to their questions from the instructor and teaching assistants. In addition, over 60 on-line videos were created so students can watch and learn at home. During spring and fall semesters of 2014, bother traditional and redesigned Statics courses were offered to the students, which allowed a comparison of the two approaches. Data from the past several years were also collected for further comparison. Student survey was conducted and the results were analyzed. Preliminary results on student performance and their perceptions about the course redesign will be presented. A list of lessons learned was identified. The preliminary results are promising and we are planning to implement the redesigned methodology to other engineering fundamental mechanics courses.