Redesign of a Large Statics Course for Neurodiverse Students in the Distance Learning Environment

One of the first large courses that engineering students encounter is Statics, which teaches various foundation topics and rigorous assessment schemes. Statics is an important course in that it gives the student the necessary foundation to further succeed in their education and careers. Re-designs of the Statics course have been proposed to accommodate neurodiverse students, with the prospect that increasing diversity and promoting creative problem-solving skills has the potential to be beneficial for the Civil Engineering (CE) profession. The objective of this paper is to report a re-design procedure of the Statics course to accommodate neurodiverse students and improve interpersonal rapport in the online distance learning environment, while maintaining academic effectiveness. The procedure includes implementing seven universal design of instructions (UDI) principles in an online distance learning modality. In Fall 2020, two Statics course sections were taught; one was the experimental group using the UDI components, and the other section was the control group. A formative evaluation regarding the UDI implementation has been conducted for the experimental group. For both sections, the summative students' evaluations of teaching were conducted at the end of the semester, and the results from these two sections were compared. The final goal of the re-design is to create a diverse and inclusive Statics course to accommodate neurodiverse students as well as all students with different learning styles and disabilities.