Hands-On Activities: A New Instructional Method for a Fluid Mechanics Course---Never Underestimate the Teaching Power of Jell-O RTM.

摘要

Background In order to eliminate the fear-factor associated with learning FluidMechanics, a new instructional method was created. The new method is neatly packaged into hands-on activities (as defined in this dissertation) in order to ease implementation and dissemination into an engineering class. Because of variations in learning and teaching styles of students and lecturers [34], the hands-on activities are designed to help the lecturer communicate key concepts to a wider spectrum of students. Typically engineering lectures are biased towards intuitive, verbal, reflective and sequential learners whereas few engineering students fall into these categories. [35] The hands-on activities are meant to bridge the communication gap resulting in a positive educational experience.;Purpose In order to assess the impact of the new instructional method, a new engineering education experimental design was created. Engineering Education research is very interdisciplinary in nature and therefore requires cooperation from multiple Colleges including, but not limited to, Engineering, Education, and Science (Statistics).;Design/Method Two groups of engineering students were allocated to test the hypothesis, "Does being exposed to hands-on activities (a new instructional method) in a section of MAE 308 - Fluid Mechanics result in higher student achievement?" Comparison of the quiz results between the control group and experimental group assessed the effectiveness of the hands-on activities. The problems within each quiz correlated to a level of Bloom's Taxonomy. A comparison of the results on the problems assessed which level of Bloom's were impacted. NHST was performed to determine statistical significance while the effect size was calculated to determine practical significance.;Results The hands-on activities have a positive effect on learning. 3.30% more students per class perform better on each problem on each quiz. The hands-on activity, Rainbow Layer Cake, was a superstar proving statistically significant (p < 0.05) and meaningful with a 1.35 effect size. Thus showing that an activity was more effective at teaching a new concept than lecturing alone. Students in the experimental group performed better on problems designed to test Bloom's levels of understanding, analyzing and evaluating (levels 2, 4, and 5).;Conclusions The hands-on activities are effective and should be developed for more concepts within all engineering courses. They are valuable tools to aid with teaching and can be easily implemented and disseminated to help make the engineering educational experience more positive.