2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering education has gradually shifted from deep conceptual teaching to a culture dominated by presentation slides. In many universities today, core courses such as Statics, Dynamics, and Mechanics of Materials are taught through PowerPoint files rather than through reasoning, derivation, and problem solving. While slide-based instruction may appear efficient, it encourages passive learning and has severely weakened students’ ability to think independently and make sound engineering judgments. Traditionally, these fundamental courses were taught by seasoned instructors who had mastered the subjects and took genuine pride in explaining complex ideas with clarity and passion. They guided students through the logic behind equations and helped them develop true engineering intuition. In contrast, many current instructors teach these courses merely to satisfy workload requirements. They often lack deep mastery of the material and rely almost entirely on publisher-provided slides, reading them verbatim without engaging students in real conceptual thinking. This practice has gradually destroyed the analytical common sense that engineering education was meant to build. As a result, many students complete their undergraduate programs without understanding the essence of engineering fundamentals. They may pass exams through memorization but later struggle in design courses, professional practice, and even graduate school because they never learned to reason through the core principles of mechanics and material behavior. The problem is compounded by the fact that universities increasingly prioritize research output, grant acquisition, and publication metrics, while giving only superficial attention to teaching quality. Despite claims of valuing education, institutional systems rarely reward genuine teaching excellence. This paper draws on classroom observations, student feedback, and comparative performance data to demonstrate how concept-centered instruction produces far stronger outcomes than slide-based teaching. It calls for a renewed commitment to teaching mastery, deeper faculty engagement with core subjects, and a return to the intellectual rigor that once defined engineering education.