Demonstration of Concept Maps to Enhance Student Learning in an Engineering Course

Abstract

Due to the drastic shift in the educational landscape toward outcome-based learning, it has become essential to implement classroom tools that will facilitate better learning of the subjects that most students find difficult to grasp. This task seems to be even more difficult in engineering courses where concepts, terminology, equations, formulations, and problems, which are initially foreign to students, abound. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate the utilization of one of the tools of outcome-based learning that will accommodate a variety of learning styles, namely a concept map. The course selected to apply this tool is the first thermodynamics course taught at Southern University. This course is usually a one-semester course taken by third-year engineering students. The course is an introduction to the basic laws of classical thermodynamics and the behavior of gases and vapors. The principles and laws necessary for energy transformation are also covered. These concept maps are developed in hope that the student will be able to qualitatively and quantitatively grasp the fundamentals and how they are linked, and appropriately apply them in the analysis of engineering systems.