“No-Lecture Fridays” - Engaging Students on a Weekly Basis with Open-Ended Active Learning Problems in an Undergraduate Vibrations Course

In math-intensive engineering courses, a traditional, lecture-based style of instruction can lead to a loss of engagement and focus amongst students . Additionally, students often have a hard time connecting the math they learn in the classroom to real-world engineering applications. Conversely, transitioning to a wholly active learning curriculum, or even flipping the classroom, can help demonstrate how the material applies to real-world application problems and yet these approaches can lead to mixed results in learning outcomes . We attempted to strike a middle ground between these two extremes in a mechanical engineering, junior level vibrations course at Villanova University by implementing what we called "no-lecture Fridays." Each Friday session of class was dedicated to allowing students to work on an open-ended, real-world application of the content presented in the classroom earlier in the week. Students used the full Friday class session to work through these problems in small groups and submitted their solutions to be assessed for credit in the course. These sessions challenged students to approach problems that may not have a single correct solution and think creatively about how they can apply the course content to a unique application. The no-lecture Friday format was implemented during the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 semesters. In this paper, we will thoroughly explain the no-lecture Friday format, present example problems, and discuss faculty perceptions of the format. We will also include anecdotal evidence that the no-lecture Friday framework was well received among students and hope to further quantify these results using end of the semester survey data pending IRB approval .