Development of Formative Stress Models and Projects

Coughlin, Emily

Student Work

Development of Formative Stress Models and Projects

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There are established benefits for students to be engaged with interactive and cooperative learning in the classroom, such as enhanced creativity leading to a more profound understanding of the course material. First-year engineering students learned and retained more information from an interactive classroom setup than those students in noninteractive classroom settings (Arnold et al., 2003). The skills gained from active, hands-on learning are and will continue to be of high importance in a changing job market. Active learning is an effective tool for universities to implement to better equip their students to meet the demands of the future labor market. Through active learning, students can develop the necessary technical and non-technical skills to foster their future personal and professional development. Hands-on learning modules can be reasonably implemented in more traditional, lecture-based classrooms, however, active learning is still highly underutilized at the university level. The goal of this research project is to facilitate student learning by developing a hands-on learning module for an undergraduate-level engineering course, Stress Analysis, which is traditionally taught at a theoretical level. Faculty teaching Stress Analysis this academic year were engaged in discussions to determine the concepts most confusing or misunderstood by the students. A large body (N>100) of students that took the Stress Analysis course were surveyed to identify concepts from the course that were both fundamental and difficult to understand. Such topics are considered “threshold concepts'' for the purpose of this research. This paper focuses on the identification of threshold concepts of Stress Analysis and the development of hands-on materials targeted at increasing student comprehension of those topics. Specifically, this paper describes our model to help students recreate on-paper problems and take strain measurements at different points along a metal beam. A small test bench was designed and prototyped to allow the beam to be set up in cantilever, two-point bending, and statically indeterminate cases. It is intended for this information and model to be implemented in subsequent Stress Analysis courses.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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