Vasudevan dedicates the second half of each two-hour lecture to problem-solving exercises, allowing students to work out the method for themselves rather than being given the answer. The exercises engage the students and provide valuable academic skills support to prepare them for the assessments.

Teaching area

Lectures

Course

Engineering Fluid Mechanics, core module for Mechanical Engineering, Level 5. A diverse cohort in terms of background and ethnicity, mostly male, with student numbers around 90–100.

Description

The module is delivered through lectures (a two-hour and a one-hour session weekly) and a one-off laboratory-based practical/experiment session. Fluid Mechanics is a fundamental topic for those studying for a degree in Mechanical Engineering. The learning often requires understanding several abstract theoretical and mathematical concepts that are not always easy to grasp from a physical or practical perspective. The lab session is therefore a much-needed element. But since labs are resource greedy, several concepts must be taught and understood using alternative means, such as numerical examples that imitate real-world problems.

Problem solving

The teaching practice example provided here helps students to solve additional tutorial questions on top of class examples. The aim is to instil the thought process required to recall and apply the correct physical and mathematical principles needed for problem solving. While it is easier to simply provide the students with written solutions to such problems, contrary to student perception, this method is less effective from a learning perspective. Solved problems could lead students to a false sense of understanding as they read through the individual steps. During such a process, the thought process is not their own, so they may find it difficult to reproduce the next time they are asked to do so, for example, in an exam.

It is my experience that lecturing for two continuous hours (even with a mid-way break) can not only be monotonous to the students but is also ineffective in terms of instilling new concepts. Therefore, a lecture in its traditional sense is only given in the first hour, and the second hour is used for solving a set of numerical problems together on the board. The students recall and reinforce principles introduced during the lecture and apply them to the scenario described in the question. They can access the questions a week before the session takes place, so that they can come prepared with their own attempted answers if preferred (this is encouraged but not always practised!)

Outcomes

Student engagement

Most students engage better because they are involved in active learning during the second half of the lecture.

Academic skills and student support

Students have found these sessions very useful as they get to see the solution and clearly understand the reason behind the methodology chosen. The practice is also inclusive in the sense that it enables students of all capability levels to grasp the process in a way that a scripted solution alone cannot achieve.

Student feedback

I found his approach helpful because it gave me licence to work out my own way of solving relating problems, while also providing context for what questions we might see in an exam scenario.

(Joe Foot, Year 2 student)