Emporium Based Redesign Of Statics: An Innovative Approach To Enhance Learning And Reduce Costs

This paper describes a new approach for teaching Statics that is also applicable to other multisection engineering courses with large enrollments. The redesign effort is based on NCAT's emporium model whereby students are introduced to the course contents via asynchronous online delivery method outside of class and work on assignments and conduct experiments with physical models inside of class (emporium) under the guidance of the instructor along with a cadre of learning assistants. During the pilot phase, students were separated into control and experimental groups, which allowed a formative assessment of the learning outcomes and comparison of the traditional and emporium approaches. The results of the pilot phase along with the preliminary results of the full implementation phase show that the emporium approach has led to moderate improvements in the learning outcomes along with significant reduction in instruction costs. As for the students' level of satisfaction with the emporium model, the opinions were rather mixed during the transition period with a growing tilt toward the new approach.