Impact of Classroom Demonstrations and Surveys on Higher-level Learning
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American Society for Engineering Education, 2017. An educational technique was developed to increase student learning of fundamental concepts in statics and particle dynamics. This technique consisted of online surveys on conceptual problems and a physical demonstration during class, and was implemented on four different concepts: particle equilibrium, couples, support reactions, and curvilinear motion of a particle. It was designed to test and improve students' ability to recognize concepts and then apply the concepts to different situations, in order to increase the students' learning level in Bloom's Taxonomy. Initially a pre-survey was given to the students and then the correct answer was illustrated with a physical demonstration. Afterward, a post-survey was given to the students on a more complicated problem to have students apply a given concept to a different problem. To observe the effectiveness of the demonstrations, one group of the students was exposed to the demonstrations and the other group was not exposed to the demonstration. The students' response on the surveys were compared between the two groups, which showed that three out of four demonstrations were overall helpful to the students in learning the concepts. The demonstration/surveys on particle equilibrium was the most effective one, followed by support reactions and couples. At the end of the semester, each group completed a feedback survey to rate how well the demonstrations and/or surveys helped their understanding of each concept. The feedback on demonstration/surveys from the group exposed to the demonstrations was more positive than the group who was not exposed to the demonstrations. We also found that the demonstrations combined with surveys were beneficial in creating more discussions among the students. In addition, the demonstrations were very useful for the instructors when they illustrated related topics to the students throughout the semester.
