Civil Engineering Course Research Articles

Gender regimes and gender relations in higher education: The case of a civil engineering course

Gender regimes and gender relations in higher education: The case of a civil engineering course

“3 Degrees and 8 Combinations” Teaching Mode of Anti-Seismic Design of Building Structures

Earthquakes pose a significant threat to people’s property and personal safety. Improving the teaching of civil engineering and building structure anti-seismic design courses can enable students to do a good job in anti-seismic design in the future and effectively reduce the damage on buildings caused by earthquakes. In this paper, we analyzed the basic characteristics of a course in civil engineering major, which is Anti-Seismic Design of Building Structures, and the shortcomings of traditional teaching. It is proposed that the 3-degrees and 8-combinations teaching mode of anti-seismic design of building structures can effectively improve students’ autonomy and enthusiasm in learning, helps to cultivate professional ethics among students, and improve their ability to apply what they have learned.

Implementing Service-Focused Activities Focused on Water Quality While Teaching a Freshmen Undergraduate Course During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Historically, high levels of self-reported stress, anxiety, and depression are quite common among STEM students. Unfortunately, after multiple semesters of disrupted education due to COVID-19, these mental struggles among students, especially first-year (freshmen) undergraduate engineering students, have only been exacerbated. To mitigate these struggles, active and thoughtful engagement in learning can be implemented. The main goal of this study was to implement an engaging, teamwork building, service-focused Environmental Engineering activity in a freshmen Civil Engineering course (CE 101, Introduction to Civil Engineering) where students performed a water quality monitoring campaign using two commercially available low-cost test strips (2:1 and 5:1) while returning to campus. Additionally, the quality of the results obtained and the students’ reception of this service-focused activity were evaluated. This activity (1) engaged the students, (2) had a positive impact on their environmental engineering knowledge, and (3) generated useful water quality data related to tap water and surficial water in northern Mississippi. Results highlighted the (1) overall good quality of the tap water collected, with the analyzed analytes significantly below the U.S. EPA maximum contaminant levels, (2) ability of low-cost test strips to generate trustworthy data (results obtained by the students were not statistically different, p > 0.05, compared to the quality assurance and quality control samples implemented) that can help local communities in assessing the quality of their water, and (3) ability to perform service-focused activity while teaching STEM courses. Students positively valued this service-focused activity, and they were enthusiastic about further experiencing this approach in other classes.

Engineering Education: Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Practices in Civil Engineering

Background: Interdisciplinary pedagogical practices can enhance dialogues, including knowledge and possibilities to produce some impact on society and the labour world. Objectives: In general, students need practical activities involving their professional training area, and interdisciplinary pedagogical practices are described from a theoretical and practical perspective. Design: This research is based on studying documents produced by the students during ten semesters while studying physics in a civil engineering course. It is educational research of a qualitative nature with descriptive data. Setting and Participants: It presents the results of interdisciplinary pedagogical practices developed by students of the second and third semesters of the civil engineering course from 2015 to 2019 at the University of the State of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT). Data collection and analysis: The documents analysed were final reports, banners, photos, bulletin boards, teacher’s diaries, course plans, videos, and electronic mail. Among more than one hundred reports and banners, 24 reports were selected for this analysis. Results: When analysing the documents, it was possible to perceive that the students were involved in interdisciplinary pedagogical practices. Conclusions: After this analysis, we concluded that it is essential to bring together professors who teach classes in an undergraduate engineering course to involve students in interdisciplinary actions and reflect on this practice.

Learning and engagement with an online laboratory for environmental monitoring education

ABSTRACT In this study, we investigated students’ learning outcomes and engagement with an online laboratory called Online Watershed Learning System (OWLS) employed within a classroom and explored the relationship between learning outcome and engagement. The OWLS is the web interface for a real-time environmental monitoring system and integrates a user-tracking system to track students’ interactions. We conducted a pre-experimental quantitative research study in a third-year Civil and Environmental Engineering course. We assessed students’ performance and perception of their learning, behavioural engagement, and their perception of engagement attributes in the context of environmental monitoring. Examples of key findings include: OWLS is effective in helping attain learning outcomes related to environmental monitoring, the order of assessment questions can impact students’ performance but not their engagement, and students’ performance is inversely related to the number of clicks they used to complete an OWLS-based task. The study informs the effective design of online laboratories and leverages online laboratories-based education.

Pursuit of Agile Transformation in the Attainment of Learning Outcomes of Civil Engineering Courses: A case study in Bangladesh

Pursuit of Agile Transformation in the Attainment of Learning Outcomes of Civil Engineering Courses: A case study in Bangladesh

The exploration and practice of BIM technology in the teaching reform of civil engineering courses in higher vocational colleges

The information wave has promoted social development, but also promoted a lot of technological innovation. BIM technology is based on the development of computer information technology, virtual simulation of the building entity, so that its digital presentation. The three-dimensional visualization model established by BIM technology can comprehensively display the structural requirements, reinforcement configuration and other parameters of building columns, beams, plates, walls and other components in a three-dimensional way. It is convenient to calculate the steel bar and concrete engineering quantity accurately and compile the project valuation documents. This paper takes the course "Measurement and Valuation of Construction Engineering" as an example, with the help of Glodon BIM software to help the teaching, deepen the teaching reform, and provide reference for the peers.

Research on the Implementation Path of Ideological and Political Education in Civil Engineering and Architecture Major Courses from the Perspective of Critical Thinking

Research on the Implementation Path of Ideological and Political Education in Civil Engineering and Architecture Major Courses from the Perspective of Critical Thinking

Analysis of Industry based Experiential Learning for Undergraduate courses in Civil Engineering

Increased levels of communication and automation process indicates the onset of fourth Industrial Revolution. Production of industry ready professionals especially for the dynamic Civil Engineering domain will be an outcome of continuous implementation of interactive teaching-learning methods. Incorporation of industry-based experiential learning to supplement the classroom sessions have been attempted for two undergraduate courses in Civil Engineering programme namely Surveying and Computer Aided Building Drawing for first year learners. Simultaneously, conventional and standalone classroom teaching was implemented for the second year learners with respect to these two courses. This study attempts to compare and analyse the learner perceptions and measure the learning outcome attainment of the Industry based Experiential learning and conventional teaching method. The selected courses provided ample space and scope for the working of industrial methodologies such as use of modern laboratory equipment (Total Station) and software (AutoCAD) for real-time problems. The assessment patterns varied extensively between the two teaching methods as the first year learners had experimental assessments for solving critical scenarios in the construction site. The results and analysis of learners’ perception obtained through the internal assessments provided an insight that Industry based Experiential Learning was well ahead in the development of Industry ready professionals. However, the challenges in this novel method are also accounted for future adaption for other courses. Hence, this study provided a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the learning environments and identify specific benefits for both the teaching methods. Keywords: Industry based Experiential learning, Surveying, Computer Aided Building Drawing, Civil Engineering

An interactive and collaborative augmented reality environment for civil engineering education: steel reinforcement bars teaching as an example

PurposeAt present, teaching methods based on 2D drawings are still commonly used for educating students on the location of steel reinforcement bars in concrete. However, traditional teaching methods have limitations as students can find it difficult to understand 2D drawings. This study aims to develop an interactive and collaborative augmented reality environment (ICARE) using augmented reality (AR) technology to improve students' engagement in learning.Design/methodology/approachThis study develops an ICARE prototype, which is organized into two stages: (1) The augmented teaching environment comprising of models and interactive components; (2) The AR collaborative application which uses Photon Unity Networking (PUN) plugin and Azure spatial anchors cloud service. The AR-based teaching environment runs with Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to enable development in the HoloLens 2 through Microsoft Visual Studio.FindingsAn experimental study was conducted, where 60 students were divided into three groups employing Drawings-based, building information modeling (BIM)-based and AR-based methods for teaching. After the test, the three groups of students were requested to complete a questionnaire. According to the analysis of the experimental results, the ICARE can improve students' comprehension, memory of learned materials and their ability to read and understand steel reinforcement drawings improving the quality of teaching, especially interactivity and engagement.Originality/valueAs illustrated in the experiments, the developed ICARE has outstanding performance over conventional approaches in civil engineering courses that can improve students' comprehension and memory of knowledge and their ability to read and understand steel bar drawings. This study provides empirical evidence that AR is a promising technology that can be integrated with traditional classroom instruction and can improve students' comprehension and memory of knowledge and their ability to read and understand steel bar drawings.

Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation

Myths and Realities of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation

Practice-oriented building analysis as a subject in the course of civil engineering

At the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, students are introduced to working with built structures in the field of practical building analysis in the master's degree in civil engineering. The basis for the existing analysis is the geometry, materials used and the structure. New structural calculations are required for modifications or extensions. The students are taught which non-destructive testing methods can be used to determine the material properties of the building fabric. In addition, it is presented how the teaching is structured and using examples that show that teaching can be designed to be very practice-relevant.

The effectiveness of an augmented reality app in online civil engineering learning

ABSTRACT In this study, an AR-based mobile learning application is proposed to assist online civil engineering course learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. A quasi-experiment has been conducted, and feedback from both the teacher and students has been analysed to examine the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of learning achievements. The subjects were 46 sophomores who majored in civil engineering in one class taught by one instructor in a southern U.S. state university. The quasi-experimental results showed that the proposed approach could not significantly improve the students’ online learning achievements. However, the feedbacks brought some explanation to this non-significant result. They indicated that students found this mobile AR app to be an interesting, helpful, practical, and effective approach in their online learning that helped them gain more in-depth knowledge than traditional teacher-centred classroom instruction.

Practical Discussion on the Curriculum Ideology and Politics Teaching Reform of “Bridge Engineering”

As ideological and political element is an essential element in the entire education process, it is of great significance to foster virtues and promote rounded development of people, improve teaching outcomes, and help students majoring in civil engineering receive well-rounded education. This paper takes “Bridge Engineering”, one of the core courses of civil engineering, as an example, and explores the teaching reform and practices around the current inadequacies in incorporating ideological and political elements into university education, in an effort to provide reference for the ideological and political teaching reform and practice of the course “Bridge Engineering”.

Application of XR-Based Virtuality-Reality Coexisting Course

Significant advances in new emerging technologies such as the 5th generation mobile networks (5G), Expand the reality (XR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enable extensive three-dimensional (3D) experience and interaction. The vivid 3D virtual dynamic displays and immersive experiences will become new normal in near future. The XR-based virtuality-reality co-existing classroom goes beyond the limitations of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). Such technology also enables integration of the digital and physical worlds and further creates a smart classroom featuring co-existed virtuality and reality. In this paper, we show an application of the XR enabling human-environment interaction. Through the theory explanation, practice platform and combination of virtual and reality, using XR we construct a new type of class. We develop the teaching methods using digital enabling, building information model library, and offline XR immersive teaching, and design a mixed teaching method which is virtual and real, and is available in online and offline formats. In our developed system the working scene as it is seen in practice is shown to the students. We consider the steel structure construction technology course in civil engineering and architecture as an example, to help the learners develop their theoretical understanding and practical skills. We also discuss the application and development of the class based on virtual and reality. This work shows the feasibility and significance of learning methods and the reconstruction and transformation of learning spaces empowered by new technologies in the digital era.

Problem-based learning in a theoretical course in civil engineering: Students' perspectives

Problem-based learning in a theoretical course in civil engineering: Students' perspectives

ROBÓTICA EDUCACIONAL, ENSINO DE QUÍMICA E APRENDIZAGEM COOPERATIVA: UMA PROPOSTA PARA O CURSO DE ENSINO SUPERIOR EM ENGENHARIA CIVIL

EDUCATIONAL ROBOTICS, CHEMISTRY TEACHING AND COOPERATIVE LEARNING: A PROPOSAL FOR THE COURSE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN CIVIL ENGINEERING. Students, generally, are afraid of studying chemistry because they understand that it is a very complex area of knowledge and that it doesn’t has use in daily lives and in intended profession, which is a problem we identified in a Civil Engineering course. With this, we proposed a project in this course, based on educational robotics and educational cooperation, with the intention to form a group of students and a teacher to make a robot involving chemical knowledge in civil construction. The group made a robot, using an Arduino kit and material recycling, to identify electrochemical corrosion in concrete structures. We conducted a case study about the group through the analysis of gestures, products made, and notes in a notebook, from which two cooperative categories emerged: planning and application. From these categories, we identified that the students had their cognitive structures unbalanced by difficult situations, trials, errors, and diverse knowledge. The formation of a new equilibrium condition resulted from individual and social developments in constant interdependence, allowing the joint construction of knowledge, whose complexity increased during the process and culminated in the realization of the robot. All these aspects characterized cooperative learning.

党史教育融入土木工程专业课程的探索与实践

党史教育融入土木工程专业课程的探索与实践

A PARADIGM SHIFT IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN

This paper reflects upon cooperative learning integrated in professional learning for students in disciplines of Chemical and Civil Engineering. Outcome Based Education (OBE) has brought a paradigm shift in higher education institutions offering Engineering Education in Pakistan focusing on student achievement and not just instruction by teachers. In this research, spanning over three years, instructional methods were modified in selected courses of Chemical and Civil Engineering both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels to become student-centered, encourage deep learning, and increase student achievement. Multidisciplinary approach towards development of understanding of complex engineering problems is introduced and its results are shared for generating insights. Need to internalize the concept of complex engineering problems is highlighted from the results of the courses taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level using system dynamics methodology. A model for continuous quality improvement is proposed based on the insights gained through observations and feedback.

Integrating philosophy of science in civil engineering: an integrative course design strategy

Many philosophers of science think scientific practice can benefit from philosophical concepts, and as such philosophy of science should play a direct role in science and engineering education. In this paper we consider a highly integrative course design strategy for integrating philosophy of science in specific disciplinary educational programmes through adaptation, operationalization and embedding of philosophy of science material to fit both the scientific and educational structure of a programme. The goal of the strategy is to help encourage students to recognize the value of philosophical concepts to scientific decision making and to apply them in their own scientific practice. We use the example of a 7.5 ECTS civil engineering course which implements this design at a European technical university, to elaborate these concepts, and present some evidence on how students receive the course. We discuss some of challenges and limitations of implementing this kind of strategy for teaching philosophy of science.