Jazaei’s fluid mechanics book published

Abstract 

Many topics in STEM domains are considerably difficult for students at the university level. Innovative pedagogy fosters an inclusive learning environment that invites all students from any background and culture to contribute and be engaged in the classroom. Creating a visual explanation works as a powerful tool for students in the learning process of a complex and abstract concept. We compared students’ outcomes from two groups of students in junior-level class and lab; fluid mechanics. One group of students was given a two-page lab manual with verbal explanation and the second group was given three to four pages of the graphical lab manual. The lab observation during seven fluid mechanics experiments revealed that the students with graphical manual tend to print out the lab manual prior to the lab and follow the given instructions through apparatus pictures whereas the first group had experienced hardship to identify the objective of the lab and performed the experiment with more confusion. Students are often more engaged and interested in transparent teaching that provides them the opportunity to connect concepts that they learn in the class with real-world applications. Another experiment was how students understand the overall objective of the course by following the course syllabus. We compared two groups of students to investigate the impact of visual learning by giving them a graphical syllabus and conventional syllabus. The first group had a greater understanding of the course concepts, real-world applications, applying meaningful equations, and expected outcomes. Other supplementary visualization methods were also applied in this capstone engineering course to increase teaching effectiveness and practicing active learning. Consequently, they were more engaged during the semester and a good number of students participated in active learning during the lecture and lab time