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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Elaine J. Camhi
Affiliation:
Aerospace America
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Summary

Background

Engineering students are unique. They are usually uninterested in a problem unless they can visualize it. There are two ways visualization can be accomplished. One can create a mathematical model where mathematical symbols simulate properties, devices, and behaviors, or one can create the engineering problem in the laboratory. The former is usually faster and easier for the teacher, and the latter appears to be disappearing from educational institutions due to the ease and familiarity with the computer.

Motivation

The motivation behind this book is based on three quotations:

The most effective method ever devised for teaching science – having students do experiments in a classroom laboratory to enable them to see the results – is slowly vanishing from American schools.

Boyce Rensberger, Washington Post, 11/12/88

Some schools have abandoned experiments in the lab in favor of simulated experiments on a computer that displays set-ups. This kind of thing is no substitute for a teacher or for a real lab.

George Tressel, Staff Associate of NFS's Education and Human Resources Division

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Old Chinese proverb

Surely excellence in instruction is at the very root of education, and of necessity demands the maintenance of good academic standards. In that light, it follows that performing experiments is the grist of engineering. Nothing can be more significant than the marriage of excellent instruction incorporating well-defined academic standards with student involvement in the laboratory, that is, having the student put that instruction to practical use.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1994

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