Improving Student Knowledge through Experiential Learning รข A Hands-On Statics Lab at Virginia Tech
By:
Christopher G. Alcorn
It has been well documented that humans learn better through a combination of hearing, seeing, and hands-on experience than through hearing and seeing alone. Despite these findings, the majority of college instruction is through lecture. This research seeks to improve the quality of structural education for students in Building Construction, Architecture, and Engineering by allowing them to test theoretical structural concepts in a hands-on, lab environment that parallels their statics lecture class. The paper provides a background on the experiential learning approach, presents examples of others engaged in similar research, discusses the details of developing the experience-based lab class, describes the labs and their structure, and summarizes the outcome of this model class. Lessons learned, including which type of student might benefit most from the experiential learning format and shortcomings of applying the experiential learning model are discussed along with recommendations for future work. An appendix at the end of the paper displays the workbook developed to teach the class as well as pictures of the labs in action and costs of lab equipment. This project is a part of a multi-college initiative at Virginia Tech to develop a three-lab sequence to parallel Statics, Mechanics of Deformable Bodies, and Mechanical Behavior. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/37134 |
| Date | 29 July 2003 |
| Creators | Alcorn, Christopher G. |
| Contributors | Building Construction, Auchey, Flynn L., Beliveau, Yvan J., Mills, Thomas H. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master's project |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Virginia Tech or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
| Relation | ETD-AlcornReport-072803.pdf |
Page generated in 0.0032 seconds