Integrating everyday examples in mechanical engineering courses for teaching enhancement

Abstract

One critical measure of success in primarily undergraduate institutions is to achieve high retention rate. Retention rate is the number of students who continue as students at the same institution in the next year compared to the number of students in the current year. Teaching-focused institutions are generally regional, and students are highly diversified in terms of their academic backgrounds and interests. It tends to be a great challenge to retain a high percentage of engineering students at regional campuses. The purpose of the presented work is to integrate everyday examples in mechanical engineering courses to motivate students in completing their studies. This approach has proven very beneficial to both students and instructors. Students are highly motivated and inspired to apply their engineering knowledge directly to everyday, real-world applications; this results in a higher level of student engagement, which in turn, leads to opportunities to improve teaching performance for instructors.