2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

It is no secret that the current generation of students are plugged into their cellphones. As an instructor, it is frustrating that students can spend hours watching mindless videos online but cannot spare 30 minutes to read a foundational literature article related to their classwork and future careers. In order to engage these students, instructors must adapt to their lifestyles, including their online viewing habits. The following paper presents a case study on the development of the AISC Days of Steel video series. These videos explore typical undergraduate steel design topics in a fun, amusing, yet educational manner, combining quirky humor with equations. The intent of the video series is to provide content to students outside the classroom setting to increase engagement and interest in the technical topics. The videos will be made available online, and instructors have the option to utilize a series of handouts to supplement learning. The video content was primarily developed, filmed, and acted out by four, typical college-aged, engineering students to ensure the story plots were amusing and would interest their peers. Once created, the videos were reviewed by a number of other instructors and steel engineers to verify accuracy of the technical content. The paper provides instructors with more background on the process of creating engaging engineering videos, highlighting some of the difficulties in filming as well as editing the content. The theoretical basis for some of the videos will be discussed. In particular, the paper will focus on techniques used to intentionally attract students’ interest while promoting learning. Finally, very limited preliminary qualitative assessment of the videos will be shared.