Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), NSF NHERI 2024: Justifying Physical-Visual Pedagogies that Mitigate Excess Cognitive Load in Undergraduate Engineering Mechanics Courses

Physical-visual (PV) learning tools such as physical models may be used in undergraduate civil engineering mechanics courses to enhance student understanding of mechanics concepts. This paper is a proposal that serves to justify the use of physical models as a tool to mitigate poor academic performance in undergraduate civil engineering education (UCEE) through an investigation of pre-existing educational structures and pedagogies. Physical models achieve this through their effective compartmentalization of structural mechanics principles, their ability to express in a tactile means the mechanical behaviour of a structural member and/or system as per their own physicality, and fostering a problem solving approach that values student-synthesis of mechanics in action in supplement of its principle, mathematical form. To establish the plausibility of turning complex mechanical behaviours into PV learning tools, a LiDAR Point Cloud (PC) to 3D printed model workflow-primitive was developed.

实体可视化（Physical-visual, PV）学习工具（如实体模型）可应用于本科土木工程力学课程，以提升学生对力学概念的理解与掌握。本文提出一项研究倡议，旨在通过调研现有教育结构与教学方法，论证使用实体模型作为教学工具的合理性，以改善本科土木工程教育（Undergraduate Civil Engineering Education, UCEE）中学生学业表现不佳的状况。实体模型可通过以下路径达成该目标：其一，对结构力学原理进行高效拆解阐释；其二，依托自身实体属性，以触觉感知方式直观呈现结构构件及（或）系统的力学行为；其三，培育以学生在实操中综合运用力学知识为核心的问题解决思路，作为原理与数学表达形式的有益补充。为验证将复杂力学行为转化为实体可视化学习工具的可行性，本研究开发了一套从激光雷达点云（LiDAR Point Cloud, PC）到3D打印模型的工作流原型。