Development of a mechanical beam prototype for educational purposes

A team of faculty and students in the College of Engineering at Rowan University are developing hands-on and visualization tools for use in mechanics courses. The developed tools consist of physical simply-supported and cantilever beams that are instrumented with load cells to which students can apply various loading conditions. Measurements from the load cells and displacement transducers are used in a Labview graphical user interface allows the user to find reaction loads and plot deflections, stresses, and shear and bending diagrams. The tools are designed to help students overcome difficulties in working with forces, moments, displacements and stresses in courses the mechanical and civil engineering courses as well as benefit students with various learning styles.

The objective of the current paper is to examine how group learning and cooperative learning are used in civil engineering courses. The paper defines group learning and cooperative learning in the first section. It is hypothesized that group learning is used in civil engineering courses to build teamwork skills and communication skills among civil engineers but that its effectiveness is not maximized owing to a lack of awareness of how it can be structured. The paper suggests that using cooperative learning is more effective. The paper describes a study of the attitudes and perceptions of lecturers in civil engineering departments in several universities. The paper finds that many lecturers use group learning in order to teach civil engineers ‘soft skills’ but are uncomfortable with the assessment of such work. There is a lack of awareness regarding how group work can be structured and regarding research into the use of cooperative learning.

Due to the advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in university education, e-learning has become an essential part of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) education programs. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an ICT that can be used as a powerful didactic method approach to improve e-learning outcomes. A collaborative BIM tool was implemented in a project design class in a civil engineering course. This study aims to analyze the way BIM technology supported resource sharing within and across project groups, reinforced the forms of group collaboration, and improved e-learning outcomes. This study was developed under the framework of the new educational model Tec 21 in the Tecnologico de Monterrey university system in Mexico. This study was evaluated using both qualitative (e.g., pyramid discussion) and quantitative methods (e.g., survey). The results showed that BIM helped to improve communication in the group, group sharing of resources, and supported different kinds of group collaboration. The collaborative BIM tool provided a location-independent central virtual workspace, whereas the BIM software provided enough individual capability and resources for accurate building modeling. The paper discusses the importance of embedding supportive ICTs, such as BIM, to improve e-learning in civil engineering courses, as well as the limitations and needs in this field.

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The study of engineering failures can offer students valuable insights into associated technical, ethical, and professional issues. Lessons learned from failures have substantially affected civil engineering practice. For the student, study of these cases can help place design and analysis procedures into historical context and reinforce the necessity of lifelong learning. Three approaches for bringing forensics and failure case studies into the civil engineering curriculum are possible. These are stand-alone forensic engineering or failure case study courses, capstone design projects, and integration of case studies into the curriculum. The ASCE TCFE Education Committee held one-day workshops in Birmingham, Alabama on July 12, 2003 and in Cleveland, Ohio on September 17, 2004 for approximately two dozen engineering educators per workshop. The participants estimated that over 75 courses and 2,000 students would be affected by the project over the next two years. The participant workbook had case studies in engineering mechanics, structural engineering, other civil engineering courses, ethics/professional issues/capstone design courses, and forensic engineering/failure analysis courses. Presentations were provided on a CD. The materials have also been disseminated on a web site.

The outcomes-based learning (OBL) approach focuses on academic outputs rather than educational input for quality assurance (QA) and quality enhancement (QE). The practicality and feasibility of adopting OBL in engineering education are questionable. Little is known about how students in different academic levels perceive OBL in engineering education. This paper aims to fill this gap through a study designed to obtain and evaluate perceptions of students of the effectiveness of adopting OBL in civil engineering education. Data was collected from 79 students enrolled in four different undergraduate and graduate civil engineering courses. Students' perceptions were collected through a questionnaire distributed on students at the end of the offering semester. Findings demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of adopting OBL in civil engineering courses to support student learning and improve their understanding of course topics. Students of the senior- and graduate-level courses held more positive attitude towards the value-added learning offered by OBL-based courses rather than students of the junior-level courses.

The scale and complexity of civil engineering projects are increasing exponentially. Coupled with the growing trend of globalisation, the demand for high-calibre civil engineers who are also knowledgeable in legal matters is increasing. Driven by an aspiration to prepare civil engineering graduates with a solid foundation in both civil engineering and law, The University of Hong Kong has developed the first 5-year credit-based double professional degree programme in Hong Kong, which leads to the award of the degrees of Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering (Law) and Bachelor of Laws. The considerations, development process and launching details of the programme are presented in this paper. The students admitted to date perform better academically than other civil engineering students on civil engineering courses. However, they do not perform as well as law students and other law-related double-degree students.

Most construction management programs required a capstone course to offer a culminating experience based on real-world projects and open-ended problems. The capstone course serves as a practicum for students before they enter professional careers in the construction industry. Although a significant variation existed in capstone courses from different programs, researchers concluded learning environments, fundamental features, important characteristics, required skillsets, and essential aspects of capstone courses in civil engineering, architectural engineering, and construction management programs. As capstone courses were typically taught in-person, little or no research focused on online environments. This paper aimed to identify essential elements and best practices for teaching a culminating capstone course online in construction management programs. The authors used a qualitative approach and conducted seven semi-structured interviews with instructors who taught a capstone course online at least once. Research participants were capstone course instructors from universities in Alabama, Kansas, Idaho, Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas. The authors identified top student learning outcomes based on qualitative results, two models for capstone courses, multiple essential elements, and best practices. The essential elements for course content were (1) using real-world, open-ended projects, (2) including plans, specifications, estimates, schedules, and site logistics, (3) incorporating safety, quality, risk, and financial performance, (4) performing collaborative teamwork, and (5) interacting with industrial mentors or faculty advisors. It was essential for students to be self-driven and proactive in their major team deliverables or small individual assignments. The essential elements for assessment and feedback were (1) assessing both technical and professional skills, (2) offering peer evaluations at the middle and end of the course, (3) evaluating oral presentations and written proposals, and (4) providing meaningful and timely feedback to students. Some best practices included but were not limited to (1) well-structured content with clear instruction, (2) maximum accessibility, approachability, and availability, and (3) consistent grading with rubrics and timely feedback. Additionally, the authors summarized unique strategies for online teaching.

Different techniques and didactic methodologies are used in the teaching of mathematics from the basic, secondary, and higher levels, constantly seeking to improve the results of teaching/learning and ensure the perpetuation of knowledge and the development of new knowledge and technologies. This article addresses in the format of a bibliographic review, the methodology of Mathematical Modeling (MM), compared and linked to the educational objectives of Bloom's Taxonomy, pointing out within the MM the possible reaches of the cognitive and affective domains, having as main approach the teaching of Mathematics in the higher course of Civil Engineering. The result of the work presents a proposal of an active class script, with the methodology of MM, intended for Civil Engineering academics, in which at each stage of the class are highlighted the possible achievements of the cognitive and affective objectives of Bloom's Taxonomy and, finally, the conclusion of the article highlights the importance of developing innovative methodologies in teaching, seeking the formation of ethical citizens and able to solve problems and who have autonomy, resilience, innovative critical sense, contributing to scientific knowledge and the advancement of the world.

The execution of pervious concrete pavements has been used over the years as a pedagogical resource in the Civil Engineering course at UNEMAT - Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso, campus of Tangará da Serra – MT – Brazil. With the purpose of aggregating scientific knowledge to the academics, providing advances in the technique used in the production of pervious concrete, as well to the development of the University's physical space. In this article, some of these studies will be presented in order to discuss the scientific observations made by academics in the development of practices and to evaluate the evolution in the methodologies of trait and execution. The characteristic that allow water infiltration has made porous concrete chosen to remedy problems due to the accumulation of water at several points on campus. In addition, another necessity was to promote the interconnection between classroom blocks. The works were evaluated taking into account the reports developed by the academics during the activities. In this analysis, the advancement of the techniques employed even when the students did not have the appropriate equipment. It was possible to observe modifications in the techniques of staining the concrete and the level of difficulty of the drainage process involved. The results were discussed in view of both the evolution of the technique of preparation of the pervious concrete pavement by the academics, as well as the practice as a didactic and social resource. Recently, besides the permeability, the thermal properties of porous concrete have also begun to be explored. Would the pervious concrete pavements has betters thermal performance than the conventional ones? In the state of Mato Grosso for presenting high annual average temperatures if, the pervious pavements contributes to a lower heat retention compared to the conventional one, this would show an excellent alternative for the substitution of the conventional pavements, prioritizing the thermal comfort of the academic community. Because of that, a comparative analysis was performed between the temperature values recorded in the porous pavements, in the conventional and green areas of the campus. The methodology of this research consisted in performance of temperature measurements with an infrared thermometer, the measurements was for 20 days distributed in four months, four times per day (8 a.m., 11 a.m., 5 p.m., and 7 p.m.). The rainy season in the region caused some variations in the results, since conventional concrete, when moist, takes longer to lose this moisture and absorb heat. The colors chosen in the painting also influenced results, because, in the pavements that the pervious concrete was not painted, showed lower temperatures than the conventional. The development of activities related to the analysis and production of pervious concrete contribute to the academic training of students of the Civil Engineering course on two fronts: obtaining technical knowledge and capacity for teamwork, exploring all the basic procedures of the routine of a real work.

Peer-assessed online collaborative writing is of growing importance in recent research on higher education. Based on the analysis of quantitative and qualitative collected data, this paper presents the results of an exploratory case study in a graduate civil engineering course at the University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal. After an overall presentation of the activity, it examines students' attitudes towards online peer assessment and identifies which factors are related to students' use and appreciation of feedback. In addition, an analysis of the type of feedback is presented in an attempt to evaluate students' written communication skills. The results of this exploratory investigation provide indications on how to improve the design and implementation of future peer assessment tasks and raise questions on the involvement of peer/teacher grading in the use of feedback.

The fast evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) introduced a new generation of learners that have been adopted mobile devices and Web 2.0 technologies to get information and communicate. The Web 2.0-based tools, such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, Instagram, etc, offer huge possibilities for collaboration. In this way, the main purpose of this research was plan an activity on wiki platform for Reinforced Concrete discipline in Civil Engineering course and answer the questions: (1) How should collaboration be effectively measured on wiki platform? (2) What is the students' point of view about using wiki platform for a collaboration activity? Wikispaces Classroom platform was chosen for the project because it is a free social writing platform, suitable for collaborative learning. Furthermore it works on modern browsers, tablets, and smart phone. A total of 167 students of Civil Engineering course were monitored on Wikispaces® platform. All students’ actions were analyzed and classified as low, medium or high level of collaboration. At the end of the project 111 students answered a questionnaire and 10 students participated of an informal interview where they expressed their opinion about the platform, the activities and the relationship with online peers. A descriptive statistical analysis of the data collected from the platform and the questionnaires answered by the students was performed. The results indicated that wiki platform is an important way to develop innovative activities and tasks for the purpose of to improve skills of engineering students such as: writing communication, organization, collaboration and critical thinking.

with the rapid development of national economy, the construction of our country and technical personnel requirements also produced corresponding changes, the demand for interdisciplinary talents gradually increased to the higher education has put forward higher requirements. The direction of the civil engineering course reform is changed to "large civil specialty” as the basic starting point, combine with the reform of talented person training mode, adjust the students' knowledge structure. The task of introduction to civil engineering is to cultivate the students' awareness of civil engineering major, make low grade students understand the civil engineering involved in the field of the content, methods, achievements and development situation about civil engineering comprehensive from the visual angle of safe academics, social and security technology, economy and management unity. The new understanding of civil engineering specialty, enhances the student to study the interest of engineering knowledge, broaden their knowledge. According to the positioning of the course, in the teaching process optimization of teaching materials, reasonable allocation of hours, adopt the suitable way of teaching organization teaching, and achieve good teaching results

In the civil engineering curriculum at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, the 421 traffic engineering course in civil engineering (CE) is intended to provide students with details of driver behavior, traffic characteristics, and design considerations for addressing traffic problems. In fall 2008, this class was taught in traditional face-to-face lecture format. On the basis of student feedback and success in achieving learning outcomes, it was determined that the course should be more student centered and that there should be a two-way feedback mechanism between students and instructor throughout the quarter. The course was redesigned and taught in the new hybrid format during the fall 2009 and spring 2010 quarters. This paper discusses how lessons learned from hybrid redesign of courses in other fields can be applied to a traffic engineering course. The CE 421 hybrid format involved reduced face-to-face meeting time and included learner-centered, online activities. The material was front-loaded for the students through PowerPoint presentations with narrations so that they could come prepared for the face-to-face lectures. The online activities also included simulation and surveys, which demonstrated the variation in reaction time of drivers, and videos that demonstrated the level-of-service concept and a new type of traffic control for intersections. After these online demonstrations, students were asked to fill out a survey. The results from these surveys were then discussed in class to achieve the underlying learning outcomes. A set of questions is provided as guidance for instructors who may be considering a similar redesign of their transportation engineering courses.

This study aims to gain an overview and knowledge of the graduates of job profilesthat include the type of work that occupied areas, the waiting period to get a job, how to get a job, the amount of earned income, and employment status.
 The research was conducted on D3 in Civil Engineering who graduated in odd semester of 2005/2006 until the second semester 2009/2010. Sampling was done by purposive sampling. The study population numbered 113 people. The research sample consists of 29 people. This research uses descriptive method with the waythe survey.
 From the results of this study found that graduates who pursue work in the field of civilengineering work is now 82,76 %, while those working outside the field of civil engineering as much as 17,24 %. And for the first time job as much as 79,31 %worked in the field of civil engineering, while 20,69 % outside of civil engineering.Employment status of graduates on the job is now 55% is fixed and for the work of the first 72,41 % of the contract. Large salary in first job 48,28 % range between Rp 1.500.000 - Rp 2.500.000 per month, and the work that is now 27.58 % ranges between Rp 1.500.000 - Rp 2.500.000 and Rp 3.500.000 - Rp 4.500.000 per month. Graduation GPA of the most sought after companies ranging from 2,51-3,00. Organizational experience during campus 77.78 % were helped in the work world 48.27% obtained employment information from the internet. The waiting period to get a job at 86.21% is less than 3 months.
 The conclusion from this study that the quality of the D3 in Civil Engineering work has begun to be recognized in the world. From the field of employment, graduates can work not only on earth but also can ketekniksipilan outside of civil engineering.Although most of the graduates are working in the world of civil engineering. And the expected results of this research can provide input to the future for D3 in Civil Engineering courses to be able to better tailor its curriculum current with the times to produce future graduates more competitive in the world of work.