Developing A Computer Based Simulated Environment To Learn On Structural Failures

The need to include topics of analysis and investigation of structural failures in Civil Engineering undergraduate courses has been nationally recognized for some time. Structural failures are taken here to an educational ground because important lessons can be learned from failures. The goal of this project is to create new learning materials for active learning in a simulated environment to improve students’ awareness about the causes and effects of structural failures in engineering. To achieve this, the research develops a computer-based learning system, in which students learn on structural failures by performing in a simulated environment. In the completed version, several modules will be developed and tested, to prepare undergraduate civil engineering students to tackle problematic situations. The implementation of computer-based learning has proven to be effective in university courses in disciplines other than SMET. The idea of asking the student to perform in a simulated environment is not new and was originally developed for students of management schools, but its use in civil engineering will be a specific contribution of this project. This involves adapting a methodology to groups of engineering students. The approach can be seen as immersed in case-based reasoning, although reasoning in this proposal is made by the learner and not by the computer. Only the simulated cases that need to be solved by the learner are implemented in the computer. Introduction: The Engineering Education Needs This paper reports on the development of a computer-based learning system, in which students learn about structural failures by performing in a simulated environment. Petroski 7 has emphasized the importance of studying structural failures in engineering, by supporting the idea that there is much one can learn from the bad experiences that have occurred in the recent or distant past. The underlying assumptions are that failures associated with design errors have been repeated throughout the history of structural engineering; therefore learning about what happened in the past will decrease the risk of future constructions. A similar argument was advanced over thirty years ago by Sibly and Walker 14 , who investigated structural failures in bridges in order to understand patterns behind those failures. The status of a theory that may identify causes of structural failures has been recently reviewed 6 . The importance of integrating lessons learned from case studies of structural failures into the civil engineering undergraduate education has been emphasized by several authors (see, for example, Rendon-Herrera 9 , Delatte and Rens 2 ). The ASCE-TCFE (American Society of Civil Engineering, Technical Council on Forensic Engineering) encourages universities to include forensic engineering and failure case studies in Civil Engineering education because a gap was recognized within this area in the engineering education. Teaching about structural failures can be done using traditional methodologies (including lectures and assignments), but it is not easy to get instructors with the required knowledge to P ge 14440.2 make quality presentations on the topic. This requires a specialist, not present in most universities. The results of a survey conducted ten years ago by the ASCE-TCFE to ABETaccredited Civil Engineering schools, supported an initiative to include failure studies in the curricula; however, many schools responded that they did not know how to do that, or that they did not have case-studies on which the teaching could be based. “The lack of instructional material was cited as a reason that failure analysis topics were not being taught” 2 (pp. 99). Further, they are not included because many instructors think that there are more pressing teaching needs related to analysis and design. Thus, the research reported in this paper addresses a recognized need in Civil Engineering education. Structural failures are taken here to an educational ground because important lessons can be learned from failures: A structural failure is here seen as an opportunity to learn. This problem is not restricted to Civil Engineering, because failures and the possibility of learning from them can be seen as a learning opportunity in nearly all Engineering branches. Ways to Teach Lessons Learned from Structural Failures Besides the traditional lecture/conference approach mentioned before, an educational alternative is to generate new material that can be shared by many instructors, and which includes the main topics in a didactic way. This could be done in the form of a booklet (passive approach), or using new information and communication technologies within the framework of an active approach. This research attempts to meet the need of integrating lessons learned from case studies of structural failures by developing new learning materials to be used as part of an existing course. Specifically, we attempt to create new learning materials for active learning in a simulated environment. The main goals are to improve students’ awareness about the causes and effects of structural failures in engineering, and to help them develop skills on conducting failure investigations. To achieve this, the present research develops a computer-based learning system, in which students learn on structural failures by performing in a simulated environment. In the completed version, several modules will be developed and tested, to prepare undergraduate civil engineering students to tackle problematic situations. At present, a module for an advanced course has been developed and partially tested. Learning by doing in a computer-based simulation As stated by Dede 1 and others, students may have significant differences in learning styles. This is the root of a “blended” approach, according to which different teaching strategies should account for the differences in student learning styles. Most teaching occurs at present in lecture format, which appeals to just one learning style, and it would be desirable to have other formats available in the same course. This project is centered on the methodology known as “Learning by doing in a simulated environment”. The idea of asking the student to perform in a simulated environment is not new and was originally developed for students of management schools, its use in civil engineering will be a specific contribution of this project. This involves adapting a methodology to groups of P ge 14440.3 engineering students. This methodology has been successfully applied by Roger Schank and coworkers in a number of simulations in business administration 12, 13 . It evolved from earlier work on case-based reasoning and case-based explanations 10, 11 , which is somehow different from using case-based teaching 8 . Schank’s approach is about active learning, and its main postulates may be stated as: (1) Training that is carried out on a computer should involve some form of simulation, in which the learner plays a role in doing something. “Doing” in this project is some form of action on a situation related to a structural failure. (2) The environment should be designed so that it can provide the learners with several ways to support their learning. (3) Failure is an essential part of learning, so that a simulation should provide the learner with situations in which she can make mistakes and fail. This can be achieved by including information that may lead a novice to form premature erroneous conclusions. (4) The learners should be able to ask questions to an expert when they need it more, that is, when they make mistakes. If a situation does not result as expected, then it brings questions to the people who attempt to understand the situation. (5) A learning environment may be effective if it is related to the interests of the students. The current project will bring professional issues, which are of great interest to engineering students. The simulations presented by Schank tell how a story (or parts of it) develops 12 , but not how the computer-based system is organized. An example of how this is presented in one of Schank’s simulations is given in Figure 1. Figure 1. A typical screen in one of Schank’s simulations. The organization of a learning module An adaptation of Schank’s approach to the field of engineering structural analysis has been implemented in this research. Some of the initial tasks carried out in this research included the P ge 14440.4 organization of a simulation in a systematic and effective way 3 . Rather than obscuring the methodology employed, this section attempts to fill details concerning the system architecture. The opening screen of the environment is a welcoming address in which a task is assigned to the student. This is Level 1 in the navigation tree. The student is addressed by a member of a fictitious company involved in the oil industry, who requests his/her help in investigating the causes of failure of a storage tank. A photograph of the failed tank is shown to the student. To create a more realistic simulated environment, this company member speaks from a video. The student plays the role as an expert in the field. The video ends with a question: Will you be able to help us? By tapping into the question, the student goes to the next screen (Level 2), in which there are three possible answers: ≠ Yes, and I want to start my investigation now. ≠ Yes, but first I need to prepare a strategy to do the job. ≠ No, I cannot do the job at the moment. If the student chooses the second option, then the next screen (Level 3) helps him/her to prepare a research strategy. This help is in the form of written texts provided (as in a library), in which successful strategies followed by experts in this field are described. There is a chance of writing a mail to the instructor to verify if the proposed strategy looks coherent. If the student chooses the first option, then the next screen (Level 3) offers five possi