Concrete Beam Design: Teaching Architecture & Building Science Students Using Discovery Learning Theory

By Scott Kramer and Anoop Sattineni.

Published by Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal

Format	Price
Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

Many design educators possess technical degrees and years of professional work experience, but are not well versed in learning theory and cognitive science. Understanding the major findings of previous researchers in the areas of learning and cognition may be helpful when preparing course material and lab assignments. Therefore, this paper provides a cursory review of the learning theories with emphasis on discovery learning theory. Two professors used the discovery learning theory to conduct a project in teaching reinforced concrete beam design to construction and architecture students. In this project students are required to design and build a reinforced concrete beam to support the weights of their group members in bending. In an effort to reduce the self weight of the beams and to test the accuracy of calculations, students were asked to design the beams without any load factors or capacity reduction factor. The experiences of the professors conducting the study along with student opinions gathered from a questionnaire are presented.

Keywords:	Discovery Learning, Architecture Education, Construction Education, Concrete Beam Design

Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp.29-38. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 939.655KB).

Dr. Scott Kramer

Associate Professor, College of Architecture, Design and Construction, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA

Scott W. Kramer is an associate professor in the College of Architecture, Design, and Construction at Auburn University. He received his B.S. and M.S. in civil engineering from Auburn University and Ph.D. in educational technology from Purdue University. Since 1993, he has taught undergraduate and graduate classes in estimating, scheduling, project management, and information technology. His research and consulting work involves international construction and designing study abroad classes for university students. His project management experience includes 9 years of professional practice working for two Engineering News Record (ENR) top 50 commercial builders. Kramer co-authored the research article, Teaching Project Management Through an Information Technology-Based Method, which was named the 1997 Paper of The Year by the PMI Project Management Journal. Kramer has also received several national teaching awards including the 2003 Outstanding Educator Award presented by the Associated Schools of Construction.

Anoop Sattineni

Associate Professor, Department of Building Science, Auburn University, USA

Reviews:

There are currently no reviews of this product.

Write a Review