Close
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Project Team: Shehzaad Chikte (Lead), Nishat Ahmed (Lead), Thore Bucking (Support), Dr Daniil Nikitichev (staff partner) and Dr Pilar Garcia Souto (staff partner)
The aim of the project was to develop teaching material to aid the learning of computer aided design (CAD) software for first and second year Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics students. Previously, the teaching materials provided were difficult to follow and as students who experienced this, we wanted to create simpler video tutorials, allowing students to learn and understand at their own pace.
In general, we received good feedback from the students through feedback tutorial sessions in the Biomedical Engineering department. They said the tutorials were clear and helped them carry out their assignments with little difficulty. The teaching assistants who also delivered the AutoCAD sessions felt as if they were engaging better and understood how to do the assignments much better than the previous years.
Creating the handouts went really well as the step-by-step instructions enabled the students to learn how to use AutoCAD without having to go back and forth through a video. These were also much more efficient than developing the video tutorials. The videos were difficult to create; however, we feel that the pace of the instructions throughout the video were good. As well as this, we feel that the graphics involved showing the students how to carry out certain functions in AutoCAD were at a good level too.
If this project was to be undertaken again, we would add more complex material for those who may be more experienced with the AutoCAD software. All the tutorials provided were aimed at beginners in their first or second year, however, it became apparent that more mature students in higher years were seeking help from these tutorials and handouts. This meant that there was a demand for more complex material, something which could be created in the future. Moreover, we found that the video-making process was quite time-consuming, therefore we would try and find ways to make simpler, more precise videos for students, which in turn would enable us to create more useful visual material.
It was a fulfilling experience, being able to create material that would directly benefit the learning of newer students. Teaming up with lecturers and teaching assistants, us students were given the responsibility to decide how the skills would be taught to the newer students on the course. The videos and handouts we created allowed the beginners using CAD more comfortable and confident with learning a new software. The students were mainly first year Biomedical Engineering students taking a technical drawing module within the department. Having asked a few students, the materials were said to have helped them complete a 3D drawing assignment with little difficulty.
Being involved in a UCL ChangeMakers project of this type allows you to directly influence how students learn. If you are a student, from any department, who feels like the way a certain course is taught could be improved, then you could actively bring that change about with a lot of support from staff within your home department as well as UCL ChangeMakers.
Project Outputs:
AutoCAD: Introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKGeQ0o2hNs&t=41s
AutoCAD: Drawing a 3D Object: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iReC1SMBDw8&t=103s