Learning and Teaching Engineering Courses with Visualizations

Engineering students learning about engineering analysis and design usually experience such complex or abstract aspects that they may not be able to fully understand without additional tutorial lessons or further explanations with visualizations. As examples, when learning construction technology students need to visualize materials and sequences of construction process, i.e. how all components of a facility are assembled? Such visualization can not be achieved in a textbook and a traditional lecturing environment. This paper presents the development and implementation of a computer tutoring software, in which a new method of teaching, named 'learning with visualizations' is designed to assist students in deeply understanding and effectively mastering materials. The tutoring software was used to teach a construction engineering management course at California State University, Long Beach. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the tutoring tool is also discussed.