MENU
  • ASEE Logo
  • Give
    Give
    ASEE Donations...
    Classified Volunteer
    Login Join
  • Join Login Volunteer Classified Give
    Give
    ASEE Donations...



About
  • Overview
    • Mission, Vision, Goals
    • Public Policy Statements
    • Constitution
    • Bylaws
    • Organizational Structure
    • Investment Policy
    • Financial Policy
  • Our History
  • Staff Contacts
  • Leadership
    • Board Of Directors
    • Academy Of Fellows
    • Past Board Members
    • Advisory Committees
    • Representatives to External Organizations
    • Executive Director's Message
    • Meeting Minutes
  • Volunteer
  • Careers at ASEE
  • Privacy Statement
I Am A...
  • Member
      Login Required
    • Your Member Page
    • Membership Directory
    • Financials
    • No Login Required
    • Awards
    • Divisions, Fellows, and Campus Reps
    • Sections and Zones
    • Resources
  • Prospective Individual/Organizational Member
    • About ASEE
    • Individual Membership
    • Institutional Membership
    • Major Activities
  • Donor
  • Prospective Partner or Sponsor
  • Advertiser
  • Fellowship Seeker
    • About Fellowships
    • High School
    • Undergraduate
    • Graduate
    • Post-Doctoral
    • Other Programs
Events
  • Conferences and Meetings
    • 2021 Annual Conference & Exposition
    • 2020 Virtual Annual Conference & Exposition
    • Section & Zone Meetings
  • Council Events
    • Conference for Industry and
      Education Collaboration (CIEC)
    • Engineering Deans Institute (EDI)
    • Research Leadership Institute (RLI) (Formerly ERC)
    • Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • EDC Public Policy Colloquium (PPC)
  • Featured Events
    • Frontiers in Education
    • NETI
    • CoNECD
    • First Year Engineering Experience
    • Workforce Summit
  • Future Conference Dates
Publications
  • News
    • Newsletters
    • eGFI
    • Division Publications
  • Journals and Conference Papers
    • Overview
    • Journal of Engineering Education
    • Advances in Engineering Education
    • Conference Proceedings
    • Section Proceedings
    • Zone Proceedings
    • PEER
    • Plagiarism
  • Monographs and Reports
  • Prism Magazine
  • Data
    • Profiles of E&ET Colleges
    • Case Study Series: Engineering-Enhanced Liberal Education
Impact
  • Public Policy Statements
  • Data Analysis
  • Annual Reports
  • Diversity
Education & Careers
  • Academic Job Opportunities
  • Course Catalog
  • Engineering Education Research and Innovation
    • Engineering Education Community Resource
  • PreK-12
    • eGFI Teachers
    • eGFI Students
  • Engineering Teacher PD Endorsement
Calendar
2020 Annual Conference
The ASEE 2020 Virtual Annual Conference content is available.
See More....
  • International Forum
    • Past Forums
  • 2020 Research Leadership Institute(RLI) (Formerly ERC)
    • Overview
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ERC Past Conferences
  • 2018 Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ETLI Sponsorship Options
  • 2017 Global Colloquium
  • Pre K-12 Workshop
    • Call for Proposals
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Sponsors
    • Program Schedule
    • Past Conferences
  • STEP Grantees Meeting
  • Annual Conference
    • Past Conferences
  • International Forum
    • Past Forums
  • 2020 Research Leadership Institute(RLI) (Formerly ERC)
    • Overview
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ERC Past Conferences
  • 2018 Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Engineering Technology Leaders Institute (ETLI)
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Program Schedule
    • ETLI Sponsorship Options
  • 2017 Global Colloquium
  • Pre K-12 Workshop
    • Call for Proposals
    • Registration
    • Housing
    • Sponsors
    • Program Schedule
    • Past Conferences
  • STEP Grantees Meeting
  • Annual Conference
    • Past Conferences

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A Novel Approach to Skeleton-Note Instruction in Large Engineering Courses: Unified and Concise Handouts that are Fun and Colorful

Presented at Proven Strategies in Classroom Engagement Part II: Activities for Creative Pedagogy

Skeleton notes (partially completed hand-outs that are completed during class by the instructor and the students) can be an effective pedagogy for delivering engineering material to large sections when factors such as a high student-instructor ratio and/or inadequate Teaching Assistant support prohibits a fully flipped model. This paper describes an innovative hybrid approach to instruction that features a novel approach to skeleton notes.

As examples, we will draw upon two case studies. The first is a sophomore-level Mechanics of Materials course at Name of Institution, in which the instructor has developed a robust and sophisticated set of skeleton notes over the course of seven semesters. General benefits of skeleton notes are well-documented (enhancement of critical thinking during lecture, active participation rather than passive observation, and the instructor’s ability to maintain eye contact with students without turning his/her back to the class). In the paper, we discuss the unique aspects of these handouts that contribute to their success:

• In contrast to other courses taught with multiple streams of information (traditional lecture, skeleton notes, supplementary handouts, slides, reading assignments, etc.), these handouts consolidate the technical material into a single unified message; they are truly complementary with and integrated into the oral lecture.
• The handouts are hand-written on a tablet computer, are highly graphic, colorful, and even “cartoonish” in nature, and are interspersed with humor to maximize their appeal to undergraduate students.
• The handouts are created with software that enables the author to easily employ principles of graphic design related to hierarchy of information: key points covered during lecture are large and bold; supporting details, case studies, anecdotes, and supporting derivations that are to be reviewed by students after class are very small and bubbled in the margins.

The second case study is a set of skeleton notes developed by an undergraduate student who completed this Mechanics of Materials course and emulated the instructor’s skeleton note approach in a workshop he taught at another institution.

The resulting data from both case studies suggests that this teaching technique results in better-engaged students who have a better conceptual understanding of the technical material at the conclusion of the course. On student course evaluations, the handouts are overwhelmingly cited as an effective teaching method.

The purpose of the paper is to stimulate discussion in this effective hybrid teaching technique for large engineering courses. We will describe student feedback and metrics by which the effectiveness of this technique has been assessed, and give the reader explicit step-by-step instructions on how to use technology to implement such a system in other courses.

Authors
  1. Prof. Susan Michelle Reynolds P.E. Colorado School of Mines [biography]

    Prof. Susan Reynolds is a Teaching Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. She holds a MS in Civil Engineering (Structural) from the University of Illinois, and is dually registered as a Professional Engineer (Commonwealth of Virginia and State of Alabama) and a Registered Architect (District of Columbia). Prof. Reynolds has roughly 10 years of combined professional practice as a structural engineer and as an architect, with special expertise in historic preservation and archaic construction.

  2. Raul N. Tackie Colorado School of Mines [biography]

    Raul Tackie is a Senior in Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who is also pursuing a minor in Humanitarian Engineering. His interests include sustainable development, renewable energy, corporate social responsibility, and bio-mechanical engineering. As a student at Red Rocks Community College he helped develop the Introduction to Design and Engineering Applications course which to this day continues to introduce engineering and non-engineering students alike to engineering concepts and applications through the creation of real-world design solutions. Raul continues to work with the college to develop training curriculums for their IDEA Lab while pursuing his undergraduate studies.

Download paper (1.67 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session


  • Follow Us
  • twitter
  • facebook
  • youtube
  • instagram
  • linkedin
  • 1818 N Street N.W. Suite 600, Washington DC 20036

  • Telephone: 202.331.3500 | Fax: 202.265.8504

  • © 2021 Copyright: ASEE.org All rights reserved. Privacy Policy.