Experience with the Use of Interactive Classroom Technologies for the Implementation of Problem-Based, Peer-Interaction Learning Environment in Civil Engineering Materials

Are you a faculty member who is curious if the class is following what you are presenting?Have you ever been curious to know what the student in the third row is thinking while you are talking?Do you spend many sleepless nights wondering how you will increase class participation?This paper describes the implementation of an interactive classroom technology that was designed to address each of these questions, and to improve your students experience in the classroom.This paper describes the experience of incorporating an interactive classroom response system in a required sophomore/junior course on Civil Engineering Materials.This course deals with cement, concrete, asphalt, and wood.Since this course is a required class with typically 70 to 100 students, it is often difficult to develop the type of personal interactions that you would expect from a smaller class.To overcome some of the limitations associated with the lack of participation that is typical in a large class, this course made use of a remote response (i.e., remote control) technology that enabled every student to participate and interact throughout the course of the lecture.In addition to encouraging nearly 100% participation and enabling nearly instant grading and attendance, the methodology developed enabled problem-based, peerinteractive learning during the large lecture format.This format enabled the students to work on practical problems by teaching one another, thereby reinforcing important class concepts.This paper will describe: 1) the background of civil engineering materials classes at Purdue, 2) the motivation for investigating how to improve the learning experience in the materials courses, 3) the background of interactive classroom technology, 4) methods to incorporate the personal response devices in class, and 5) plans for future developments.