Computer-assisted teaching of marine hydrodynamics

Abstract

This paper describes a curriculum development project in the M.I.T. Department of Ocean Engineering to augment and enhance the teaching of undergraduate marine hydrodynamics with the aid of microcomputers. This work has been part of Project Athena, an institute-wide experiment at M.I.T. since May 1983 which has been concerned with the incorporation of modern computer technology into all levels of the educational process. The fundamental educational goals of Project Athena are to help students learn more creatively with the aid of the computers' powerful computational and graphical capabilities and to improve and refine existing teaching methods. For teaching hydrodynamic theory, we have developed an educational software package, HYDRO, which employs a hybrid tutorial/simulation format with a menu-driven, user-oriented interphase and high resolution graphics. Teaching modules have been developed for basic topics in marine hydrodynamics involving surface waves and flow past rigid bodies. Each topic module is divided into tutorial, homework, and design sub-modules. The tutorials provide qualitative introductions or guided tours of each new area, the homework modules expose the students to quantitative problem solving, while the design modules allow the students to perform practical engineering design. HYDRO was used with an advanced undergraduate course at M.I.T., Marine Hydrodynamics I, during the fall semesters of 1985–1987. In addition to our subjective evaluations, student questionnaires and online surveys, as well as a department-wide faculty questionnaire, were conducted to evaluate the pedagogical usefulness of the project. HYDRO has been an invaluable complement to the other learning resources; the students have reported much improved intuitive understanding of the material due to the graphical orientation of the software, while hydro's computational capability has increased the students' quantitative and practical knowledge of marine hydrodynamics. Overall, the project has been a success, while valuable lessons have been learned. In particular, we have learned that making versatile scientific software available to the student does not necessarily ensure that significant educational benefits will be obtained. To achieve these educational benefits, the software must also have tutoring features which will guide the students in learning the material. When used in this way, the software modules present mechanisms whereby the material can be taught more effectively and efficiently than with the other modes of instruction.