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Supplemental Teaching Aids and Quality Enhancement Plan for a Mechanical Engineering Program at Alabama A&M University

ABSTRACT

Most mechanical engineering majors experience difficulties in their major courses like Statics, Dynamics, and Strength of Materials. It seems appropriate to increase the chances of success of students by developing Supplemental Teaching Aids (STA) that are user-friendly and highly accessible to students. This paper examines the relationship between Supplemental Teaching Aids and Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) for a Mechanical Engineering program. The developed material along with the lecture will target the retention rate increase within the Department of Mechanical Engineering. It will also enhance the quality of education as well as learning process in Mechanical Engineering Courses. To make it viable commercially accessible software such as Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation is selected as the development environment. The tool developed will accompany a particular topic in the Mechanical Engineering courses and will utilize features of the PowerPoint such as flybys, narration etc. to present the selected topic in a simple, step-by-step, and easy to understand manner. In this case a topic in ME231- Strength of Materials course was selected as a test bed. First, lecture was given to all the students without utilization of the STA. Twenty students were selected to participate in the survey that assessed their understanding of the selected topic. Feedback obtained from the survey was positive and initial results indicate that further development of such tool will enhance the educational quality within the AAMU.

INTRODUCTION

Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) has been one of the central issues for Alabama A&M University. The plan addresses the question of “how to improve the quality of learning process within AAMU.” The role of QEP is particularly pronounced in the context of retention activities. There may be several viable options for enhancing the learning process in a particular classroom. For instance, using audio and visual aids, utilization of multimedia, incorporation of projects into the course material or combination of above to name a few.

Alabama A&M University (AAMU) is a land-grant historically black university. The University is located at the northeast outreach of Huntsville, Alabama, an important world center of expertise for advanced missile, space, electronic, research and development. AAMU provides a scholarly environment for teaching and research. As a historically black institution, the University seeks to address the special needs of capable students disadvantaged by systems and circumstances which have thwarted their efforts and chances for normal educational opportunities. A continued responsibility for this element of our society is strongly embedded in the mission of the University. The department of Mechanical Engineering is a relatively new program that started in fall of 1998 with two students. That number increased to 5 in the second year, 10 in the third year, 50 in the fourth year, 100 in the sixth year and 150 in the seventh year. Historical data within the department of Mechanical Engineering indicates that out of the total number enrolled, 30 percent of the students lost to other programs are within the freshmen level standing. That number showed a reduction to 10 percent in the sophomore year, 5 percent in

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Mobasher, A., & Seif, M., & Fernandez, K., & Chowdhury, S. (2009, June), Supplemental Teaching Aids And Quality Enhancement Plan For Mechanical Engineering Program At Alabama A&M University Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--5288