The use of online resources to support laboratory classes in soil mechanics

摘要

During the introductory soil mechanics course at the University of Sydney students undertakernfive 2 hour laboratory exercises (300 students in groups of 10). This paper presents and discusses the benefitsrnof introducing two on-line resources that have been introduced to support the laboratory experience. The first isrna set of on-line pre-lab tasks that have been used to prepare students for the laboratory experiences. These havernresulted in more motivated and curious students who have engaged more wholeheartedly in the laboratory work.rnThe paper discusses the features of the program that we believe have been important in making this initiative arnsuccess: getting the right balance of certain components, making the tasks relatively easy, making it count, andrnsupporting the on-line work with paper-based materials and direct contact. The second is an on-line resourcern(WRiSE, Writing Reports in Science and Engineering) which has been developed to support the writing ofrnlaboratory reports in science and engineering at the University of Sydney. This award winning resource is freelyrnavailable externally, and one of its modules is focused on the soil mechanics course. The presentation introducesrnthe main features of the WRiSE site: report writing content; language support; presentation; student examples,rnand lecturer input, and discusses how it is used in the course. This resource has made a significant differencernto the written reports. Finally how these resources are used to support the administration and processing of thernlarge student cohort and how they are linked to the development of writing across the civil engineering programrnis discussed.