Engineering Statics

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The Engineering Statics course is currently under development and we are making the course available while it is under development. The final course is expected to comprise approximately sixteen modules. The first five modules, which have been field tested, are available now.

Statics is a sophomore level engineering course, offered in all mechanical and civil engineering programs. Statics forms the essential pre-requisite to a number of follow-on courses, such as dynamics and mechanics of materials, and lays the foundation for design of mechanical systems. In Statics we study methods of quantifying the forces between bodies, for example parts of mechanical, structural, and biological systems.

In most institutions, Statics is taught in a traditional way with an emphasis on the mathematical operations that are useful in its implementation, but without enough emphasis on modeling the interactions between real mechanical artifacts. Unfortunately, students who learn Statics in the traditional way do not generally gain the ability to apply concepts of Statics in the analysis and design of mechanical systems and structures which they confront in their subsequent education.

Prior to beginning work on the OLI Engineering Statics course, the authors undertook the development of a concept inventory for Statics which included identification of key concepts in Statics and the construction of a testing instrument to measure a student’s ability to use these concepts in isolation. The authors also combined a variety of instructional techniques known to increase learning - such as active learning, collaboration, integration of assessment and feedback, and use of concrete physical manipulatives - to devise a sequence of learning modules for the Statics classroom. These practical instructional tools, which reflect a more organized, sequential approach to addressing concepts in Statics, have been presented at conferences and described in the engineering education literature. The OLI Engineering Statics course implements this sequential, object-centered instructional approach and seeks to address the educational challenge of improving conceptual understanding and fostering improved ability to apply concepts to real mechanical systems.

To promote the integration of knowledge addressed in this course and to help learners retain "the big picture", the major conceptual themes of Statics are articulated in the course introduction and revisited at the start of each unit or module. Each module, in turn, is broken into a set of pages, and each page is devoted to a carefully articulated learning objective that is independently assessable. Most of the learning objectives are addressed through three highly interactive elements: exposition (content), problem solving with formative assessment, and summative assessment.

EXPOSITION
• Text integrated with digital images of artifacts and video clips of mechanisms
• Guided Simulations (demonstration and interactive)
• Suggested manipulation of objects

PROBLEM SOLVING AND FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
• Procedure broken down into steps
• Walkthroughs combining voice and graphics demonstrating procedures
• "Learn By Doing" tutors with graduated hints and tailored feedback

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
• "Did I Get This?" assessment exercises with hints and feedback
• Optional scaffolding
• Multiple versions of exercises for additional assessments