Adding enjoyment to engineering education: MIT xTalk

Steve Nelson
lecture

Doctor Rajesh Bhaskaran, lead professor in the Swanson Engineering Simulation Program at Cornell University, spoke to a packed lecture hall about ways engineering education can be enjoyed and personalized on a larger scale with technology and digital tools. 

Bhaskaran uses the ANSYS® simulation tool (free student version available here) in his university courses in mechanical and aerospace engineering (M&AE) to cover a wide variety of topics including fluid dynamics, heat transfer, solid mechanics, and numerical analysis. By using the simulator and teaching via the edX MOOC platform, he is able to scale hands-on learning for hundreds of students at a time and from all over the globe.

“With a hands-on MOOC on edX, it changes what you can teach and how you teach it. My goal is to facilitate routine use of simulation in the M&AE curriculum.”

Bhaskaran suggested that simulations do not replace experiments, but rather compliment the experiments and allows students to formulate ideas or presumptions before the actual experimentation. He has also created a workshop for students to review simulations through simcafe.org, which serves as a digital learning resource for standardized simulation tools and other supplemental learning outside of the classroom.

Bhaskaran was adamant that students still need to do hand calculations to prove the simulators’ accuracy, and to understand that, while the simulator can solve the mathematical problem, it does not solve the physical problem. The verification and validation process cannot be replaced by a simulator.

“What these online tools and simulators help us do is move students from novice to expert thinkers. We are training students to be expert thinkers,” said Bhaskaran.

Finally, Bhaskaran added that in order for students to become expert thinkers, they need scaffolding to get from the ordinary problems to the very difficult ones and that immediate feedback was helpful in making the learning more enjoyable. “Don’t be the sage on the stage,” he suggested, “be the guide on the side.” By embracing technology and simulation he has created a better, more scalable learning platform.

Video of Bhaskaran’s lecture will be available here.  For future MIT xTalk events, visit the MIT Open Learning website.