2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Several reports suggest there is an urgent need to greatly increase both the number and diversity of students graduating in STEM fields over the next decade. They recommend switching to teaching methods backed by research, like concept-based active learning. This approach focuses on using activities to help students understand key concepts deeply, rather than just memorizing facts or algorithmically solving problems. Studies show that pedagogies like concept-based active learning boosts student engagement and achievement, helps retain students in their program of study, and narrows the performance gap for underrepresented groups. It is also crucial for solving real-world problems, especially in fields like engineering.

However, the main challenge isn’t proving that these methods work better than traditional teaching—it’s getting instructors to actually adopt them. This project aims to spread the use of the Concept Warehouse, a web-based tool for concept-based active learning, in Mechanical Engineering (ME) programs. The tool was originally developed for Chemical Engineering (ChE) and includes over 3,500 "ConcepTests," which are short questions designed to engage students and assess their understanding of concepts. The Concept Warehouse also contains concept inventories and more extensive instructional tools like inquiry-based activities and virtual laboratories.

The Concept Warehouse has grown significantly, now supporting over 1,700 faculty and 40,000 students. In the current phase of the project, new questions have been added for Statics, Dynamics, and Mechanics of Materials, with totals of 354, 445, and 42 questions, respectively. A review process is underway to improve the clarity of these questions and identify areas where more questions are needed. Since June 30, 2018, 720 new faculty accounts have been created, and 3,466 students have answered these mechanics questions through the tool’s student interface while some instructors deliver the content through other mechanisms. The team is working on developing a new Rigid Body Dynamics Concept Inventory to expand the current capabilities of the Dynamics Concept Inventory and has also created several adaptive learning modules for mechanics and material science.

Our analysis has focused on both instructor and student learning. On the instructor side, we have investigated the impact of introducing the Concept Warehouse on instructors’ trajectories of practice, an innovative framework based on our theoretical model to understand the role of contexts (including their institutions, courses, students, personal history and pandemic-related adaptations) in their use of the tool’s multiple affordances. We also have studied students’ conceptual and metacognitive learning processes through analysis of written explanations and think-aloud interviews.

We delivered a three-day workshop to 22 two- and four- year university faculty members dedicated to concept-based active learning and the use of the Concept Warehouse. There was an overwhelming response from our call, with 179 applications completed. Twenty-one (21) out of 22 rated the summative question “Would you recommend this workshop to a colleague?” as “Strongly Recommend” and one (1) as “Recommend.” In the coming academic year, we will hold a virtual Community of Practice with faculty from the workshop to further use of concept-based instruction.