To develop and enhance structural engineering design skills in an introductory level solid mechanics course, students maintain a process book. In their process books, students, sketch, problem scope, brainstorm, and generate and evaluate design alternatives through a series of assignments that coordinate with the primary course content. The instructor provides feedback on these assignments and then the students have opportunities to reflect and revise their work. Consequently, each book ends up taking the form of a semester-long conversation between the student and instructor.

Publications

(for conference publications, underline indicates the presenter, † indicates the paper was not presented orally, and * indicates the paper was displayed as a poster)

Segal, E. M. and Adriaenssens, S. (2016). “Developing Design Skills in an Introductory Mechanics of Solids Course.” American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA.

Fang, D. L., Adriaenssens, S., Bands, H. V., and Segal, E. M. (2015). “The Digital Engineering Classroom: Collaborative Structural Design Space and Supplementary Educational Material.” International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures Symposium, Amsterdam, Netherlands.