METHODOLOGY FOR DEVELOPING TEACHING ACTIVITIES AND MATERIALS FOR USE IN FLUID MECHANICS COURSES IN UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING PROGRAMS

“Mechanics” and “Fluids” are familiar concepts for any newly-registered engineering student. However, when combined into the term “Fluid Mechanics”, students are thrust into the great unknown. The present artcle demonstrates the process of adaptaton employed by the Fluid Mechanics course in the undergraduate engineering program, along with the teaching methodology, teaching materials and results obtained, evaluatng the fnal objectve in terms of student satsfacton and level of learning.


INTRODUCTION
The establishment of the European Higher Educaton Area (EHEA) has led to important changes in our university educaton system, and thus in engineering programs.In spite of the fact that artcles such as that by Mills and Treagust (2003) show a clear need for change in teaching methodology, away from the dual noton of teachingprofessor and towards that of learning-student, engineering programs contnue to show an unfortunate inclinaton towards the former approach.This is in spite of the fact that this discipline allows for a multtude of learning tools.
The overall environment also plays an important role in the university educaton system, in which providing students knowledge with a fundamentally theoretcal structure fails to develop the practcal skills and abilites that are so needed by the job market.Problem solving is an inherent part of the feld of engineering.
The teaching-learning process of Fluid Mechanics has been characterized by being difcult and uninterestng for many engineering students.Some very interestng experiences have been introduced to address this, such as project-based learning (Barrio, Blanco, Martnez & Galdo, 2010).As Gad-el-Hak (1998) describes it, the art of fuids in moton came about in an empirical manner, with no clear idea of what either a fuid or mechanics even were.It originated through experimentng, for example, with the diference between the wind's efect on streamlined and bluf bodies.Nevertheless, at an engineering level, this discipline stll remains a great unknown, in spite of its functon, rigor and interdisciplinary nature.
Within their teaching methodology, professors must contemplate the potental lack of interest or partcipaton by students in class and the difculty of understanding concepts or with oral and writen expression.It must also be assumed that it is possible that the instructor's teaching strategies do not match the learning styles of most of the students, which does not promote a positve climate of motvaton and assimilaton for the teaching-learning process.Learning is not teaching; we must teach to learn.
Generally speaking, the type of student registered for Fluid Mechanics knows litle about the subject, and has a keen interest in the core subjects to the detriment of more interdisciplinary knowledge.There is also the handicap that the subject is studied hand in hand with other basic subjects, or even afer them.To summarize, Fluid Mechanics students can be characterized by some of the following characteristcs: • A lack of motvaton that comes from not knowing anything about its content • The obligaton to take the course, since it is a common core subject for the degree • A lack of interest that results from not seeing its applicaton/usefulness in terms of their major or specialty • A lack of satsfacton resultng from taking the course and not reaching the established expectatons One reference we have is the Kolb model (1984), which classifes student learning styles into four categories, based on how the student processes the informaton that is received: • Actng, in the case of actve students: he/she learns from a concrete, direct experience, putng the concepts into practce in new situatons.
• Refectng, in the case of refectve students: he/she learns through refectve observaton and thinking about the experiences received.
• Theorizing, in the case of theoretcal students: he/she learns through abstract conceptualizaton, obtained by reading or having things explained.
• Experimentng, in the case of pragmatc students: he/she learns by actvely experimentng with the informaton received.
This present work makes no atempt to base itself on the planning and design of strategies based on learning styles and the Kolb model, rather on a teaching methodology that uses teaching tools that lead to the productve learning of Fluid Mechanics, with actvites that appeal to all learning styles.At the same tme, this methodology must motvate students, highlight important concepts, employ simple examples and refrain from repetton, while leaving aside obsolete methods and procedures that have fallen into disuse.As Felder (2014) rightly explains, in an introductory Fluid Mechanics course, it is not of much use to dedicate three classroom lectures to a detailed derivaton of the Navier-Stokes equatons when the professor will not put it on a test and it is not within the realm of applicaton of undergraduate engineering students.
Thus, this work focuses on three main objectves: • The instructors' objectve: to implement a teaching method that uses a number of varied and diverse tools that lead to the productve learning of Fluid Mechanics.
• Objectve of the work presented: to evaluate, from a qualitatve and a quanttatve perspectve, the efectveness of the teaching methodology in terms of learning by students of Fluid Mechanics, based on diferent parameters that come into play.
• Final objectve: to improve the instructonal quality, which coincides with increased levels of learning, beter academic results and greater satsfacton on the part of students studying Fluid Mechanics.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND CONTEXT SURROUNDING THE FLUID MECHANICS COURSE
"Mechanics" and "Fluids" are familiar concepts for any newly-registered engineering student.However, when combined into the term "Fluid Mechanics", students are thrust into the great unknown; when you start to have an idea about it, you fnd yourself sitng in class, faced with an exam over it in the near future.One very interestng case is that presented by Gynnild, Myrhaug and Petersen (2007), in which a laboratory and a computatonal algebraic program is used in class to introduce the phenomena of Fluid Mechanics.Other recent experiences that have successfully increased student motvaton have been based on games and atypical experiments (Absi, Nalpas, Dufour, Huet, Bennacer & Absi, 2011) and on touch screen devices used for dynamic learning experiences (Kumar, Ramana, Afrin, Ortega, Agarwal & Udoewa, 2013).Figure 1 shows a diagram summarizing the 5 pillars that consttute the environment and context surrounding Fluid Mechanics.

The Structure
The Fluid Mechanics course presented in this paper is a common core subject worth 6 ECTS points in the second year of the undergraduate engineering program for 5 diferent specialtes: Electrical Engineering (EL), Industrial Electronics and Automaton (IE), Mechanical Engineering (M), Chemical Engineering (CH) and Textle Technology and Design (T), each of which is taught at the Escola d'Enginyeria de Terrassa (EET) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).It is a common required course for all undergraduate students, and therefore it must have a broad, general focus (with both the positve and negatve aspects that this entails), as the aim is to meet the needs of the diferent technological profles of the undergraduate degree programs ofered.
The courses have an average of 225 students registered for classes taught by 7 professors, and therefore it must be emphasized that a large number of the students take the course during the same quarter and all of them partcipate in the same actvites.The students are divided into: • 4 large groups (LG) for theoretcal classroom lectures (groups A, B, C and D), with 2 hours of face-toface instructon per week.Each lecture group has a diferent professor.
• 4 large groups (LG) for problem-solving exercises (groups A, B, C and D), with 1 hour of face-to-face instructon per week.Each exercise group has a diferent professor.
• 12 small groups (SG) for laboratory work, with 2 hours of face-to-face instructon every two weeks.Several small groups have the same professor for laboratory work.
However, students from the 5 specialtes are not evenly divided among groups A, B, C and D, as shown in Figure 2 below.Furthermore, it should also be kept in mind that those students who had not yet selected a major at the tme they registered for this course have been categorized as "No specialty" (NS) in this work.

Planning and Teaching Materials
Exhaustve planning is carried out, based on a syllabus of one-hour lessons, each with its corresponding subject mater.The lecture, exercise and laboratory hours are planned and made available on the Virtual Campus in such a way that students know exactly what is expected of them at all tmes.The Moodle ATENEA is the version of the Virtual Campus used at UPC.
All teaching materials for the course are available on the Virtual Campus from the start of the course.The notes for the lectures are structured exactly the same as the syllabus, with transparencies/notes for each one-hour lesson.The problem set for the course used for the exercise sessions is diverse and the problems are organized by topic, in such a way that they complement the lectures and serve as a tool for both classroom and group work and individual study at home.The practcal laboratory actvity instructon and report book contains the instructons on how to do each of the practcal actvites, additonal informaton and questons.The reports contain spaces for the experimental data, the calculatons and the results, as well as graph paper to show the corresponding graph, if appropriate.
The course rules and the teaching guide are available on the Virtual Campus from the start of the course.They contain informaton about evaluatons and their respectve weights, calendars, quizzes, exams, due dates, lab reports, rules for presentatons and ofce numbers and ofce hours.They also contain a list of professors organized according to theoretcal classroom lectures, problems and practcal laboratory actvites, which is very important, as it directs the students to the corresponding professor.When the tme comes, grades and exam revisions are posted on the Virtual Campus.

METHODOLOGY FOR LEARNING ACTIVITIES DESIGNED FOR FLUID MECHANICS
The methodology used for the learning actvites is based on tools for individual and group work in both the classroom and at home.The implementaton of this methodology requires very close, coordinated collaboraton among the 7 course professors.The faculty is coordinated by means of one main meetng at the end of the course, another before it and, during the course, personal meetngs among the instructors and as a group on Moodle, where the explanatons given in each lecture, problems, incidents, etc. are recorded in a partcular secton.This ensures that everything is documented and all class groups receive the same informaton, regardless of the professor teaching the course.

Actvity at the Beginning of the Course
The self-assessment at the beginning of the course is administered individually as an online questonnaire that is made available to the students on the Virtual Campus during the frst week of the course.It consists of approximately 15 multple choice questons.It is to be completed individually, and three atempts are allowed during a one-week period.The advantage of this online questonnaire is that it allows students to evaluate their own knowledge about the subject mater and the course they are going to study.The intenton is thus to let students know their startng point with regard to the course.

Individual Actvites
These are the set of actvites that are to be completed individually by the student, primarily as independent work done at home.

Assignments
Assignments, which are to be completed individually and in writen form, are given on a regular basis throughout the course.Students are required to complete the assignments to ensure contnuous learning throughout the duraton of the course.The forums created on the Virtual Campus for each assignment foster communicaton among the students in order to answer any questons they might have and to solve problems.Professors partcipate in the forums, moderatng them and providing informaton as necessary.Student partcipaton is voluntary and is not evaluated.

Self-Assessment of Theoretcal and Problem-Solving Lessons
These are referred to in this way because they consist of an online questonnaire that is answered individually for the purposes of evaluatng the student's own knowledge.The self-assessments are available to the students on the Virtual Campus.Two evaluatons each term (for a total of four) are planned.They consist of approximately 25 multple choice questons each, addressing theory and problems created on WIRIS.The data for the questons changes with each try, and thus so does the answers, which builds comprehension of the problem and the error.They are to be completed individually, and three atempts are allowed over a period of ffeen days.The big advantage of the online questonnaires is that they allow students to evaluate themselves and receive their score instantaneously, displaying the correct answers and marking the errors as soon as the questonnaire is completed.

Self-Assessment of Practcal Laboratory Exercises
The self-assessment of practcal laboratory exercises is administered individually as an online questonnaire that is made available to the students on the Virtual Campus.One is planned for the course, and it consists of 10 multple choice questons on theory and/or problems created on WIRIS, related to the laboratory exercises.It will be completed individually and will allow a single atempt on the scheduled date and tme.The selfassessment is intended to keep the students' atenton focused on the value and importance of the laboratory actvites, not just when they are engaged in them, rather on their direct relatonship to the theoretcal explanatons and problems.

Reading of a Scientfc Journal Artcle
The reading of a scientfc journal artcle of interest related to Fluid Mechanics completes the individual work.
According to Carson and Miller (Carson & Miller, 2013), an actvity of this nature during the early years of the undergraduate program considerably improves the students' research skills.Unfortunately, we are unable to dedicate as much tme to its development and evaluaton as would be advisable.This individual assignment includes a short critcal analysis of the artcle.It is submited by means of an online questonnaire, and a single atempt is allowed during the established period.A very positve assessment of this actvity by the students can be inferred, as they express their opinion on learning about applicatons of Fluid Mechanics.

Collaboratve Actvites
Quizzes involve an element of camaraderie with a previously chosen classmate.The quiz is the same for all students and is answered in pairs in the classroom.Four quizzes are planned per course, two each term.Each consists of 8 multple choice questons that address both theory and problems.The tme allowed to take the quizzes is not sufcient for them to be answered individually, so cooperaton with a partner is required.

Team Actvites
The practcal laboratory exercises build teamwork, as they are intended to be carried out in a group, promotng diferent roles among the students in a partcular group and boostng cooperaton.Cranston and Lock (2012), from the University of Bath, demonstrate the importance of practcal group work in the specifc case of Fluid Mechanics, in order to visually assimilate the concepts explained in the classroom.
The practcal exercise team is made up of a group of 5 students.Each member of the team is assigned a data collecton role in the laboratory so that the same person always reads the same instrument.This minimizes errors.The student/group must come to the laboratory having read the instructons and printed out the report to complete during the exercise with the experimental data, the calculatons and the results.
The report for each practcal exercise is completed immediately aferwards, at the computer staton inside the laboratory itself.The professor in charge of the practcal exercises is present at all tmes to guide the groups and answer any questons they might have.If everything is correct at the end of the practcal exercise, the professor signs the report and the group has fnished the practcal exercise.Their fnal task is to upload the report onto the Virtual Campus.
This practcal exercise methodology builds critcal reasoning in the context of group work, fosters communicaton among the group members and diferent groups, and promotes discussion and reasoning, all under the direct leadership and guidance of the professor.As a result, oral communicaton is partcularly encouraged through questons and issues presented by group members and the professor, promotng both student-student and professor-student problem-solving discussions.
A book is available for the professors containing all the solutons for the practcal exercise reports, along with data and results, so that the expected results are known for each practcal exercise session, regardless of who the professor is.This also serves as a guide in the event of experimental errors and malfunctons.This aspect has proven especially relevant in improving the results obtained and the rato between the performance in the exercise and the tme spent.

Classroom Actvites
The problem-solving sessions are conducted by the professor, and are dedicated to solving one or two problems on the blackboard with the entre class of students.These sessions guide the students through the problemsolving process, indicatng the methodology and a six-point procedure to be followed: • 1. Data/Order, • 2. Hypothesis, • 3. Sketch/Diagram, • 4. Basic principles/concepts of Physics, • 5. Explanaton and • 6. Soluton, results and critcal analysis.

Assessment Actvites (Exams)
Partal and fnal exams are focused on demonstratng the student's analytcal and problem-solving skills.Writen exams show not only the student's knowledge of the subject mater learned, but also good writen communicaton skills.Exams are corrected using a six-point rubric, where scores between 0 and 10 are assigned according to the procedure explained during the problem-solving sessions (see Table 1).The rubric is explained and provided to the students at the beginning of the course.For a detailed explanaton of rubric assessment, consult Smit and Birri (2014) and the references for their work.The rubric has also been included, showing its indicators.
The rest of the actvites are evaluated, each with their own weight.These include assignments, reading of artcles, self-assessment on theory, self-assessment of practcal exercises, quizzes and practcal laboratory actvites.

E. Explanaton
The explanaton is clear and detailed

The explanaton is clear The explanaton is a litle difcult to understand, but it includes critcal components
The explanaton is a litle difcult to understand and it is missing several components No explanaton was included

F. Results
The

RESULTS
Tables 2 and 3, complemented by Figure 2, show the distributon of the 4 large classroom lecture groups made up by students from all 5 undergraduate specialtes and one group of students who had not yet selected a specialty when registering for the course (designated by the acronym NS).In this analysis, it must once again be stressed that each classroom lecture group has a diferent professor.They show that specialty M has the largest number of students (especially in group A), and more than either the EL or IE groups; however, the relevance of the NS group should be noted, partcularly in the case of group A. Tables 4 and 5 show the percentages of students who have passed and failed the course (percentages of failing students are indicated in parentheses), for two consecutve academic years.In both cases, the percentages shown correspond to the groups as compared to the course total.For the two years analyzed, beter results are observed for the specialtes M, IE and EL than for the remaining specialtes, in terms of both the number of passing students and the low number of students who failed the course.

Specialty
This trend can also be extrapolated to the analysis of the classroom lecture groups.Those groups made up predominantly by students with specialtes that might be considered the most closely related to the course subject mater show the best results, as in the case of B and C; conversely, the trends are difuse for those groups with a homogeneity of specialtes.In the case of group A, responses from NS students predominate, and in the case of group D, the response is more equal, as shown in Figure 2.
These observatons coincide with the opinions of the professors of the groups.Tables 4 and 5 show a predominance of the specialtes M, EL and IE over the specialtes T and CH.As an example of the results observed, it can be seen that in the two periods analyzed, M and IE have indicators closely correlated with the number of students per specialty in each group, when comparing Tables 2 and 4, and Tables 3 and 5.This establishes a motvaton and performance factor that is notceably diferent among the diferent groups.The conclusions of the present analysis are further supported by a comparison of the distributon of grades by specialty and group, since the exams used to evaluate the students are the same for all four classroom lecture groups, regardless of the professor.Tables 6, 7, 8 and 9 show the fgures for the classifcaton of those students who earned high grades, >=8/10, and those students who earned average passing grades of between 5 and 8.

Specialty
At frst glance, the fgures revel that those groups with the largest number of students from specialtes the most closely related to the course subject mater are those demonstratng the best performance.The statstcs in Tables 6 and 7 indicate that the largest proporton of students with grades equal to or beter than 8/10 are from the specialty M, followed by EL and IE, as shown graphically in Figure 3.In the case of the academic year 2013/14, 40% of all students with a grade equal to or beter than 8/10 had the specialty M.This trend contnued and even increased during the following year, to 50%.When we analyze the interval of average grades between 5 and 8, the groups are shown to become more homogenized in terms of specialtes (see Tables 8 and 9). Figure 4, however, highlights groups that might be expected to have less interest in the course content, as in the case of groups T and CH.The course assessment system is responsible for this homogenizaton.

Specialty
The observatons lead us to conclude that those classroom lecture groups that include students with specialtes that are closely oriented towards mechanical-electrical principles are more aware of the importance of the course contents.On the contrary, the group of students who had specifed no specialty showed heterogeneous performance levels that were difcult to predict, and they tended not to atain the fnal course objectves.It might be concluded that students with specialtes such as CH and T are misinformed and believe that the objectves and applicatons of Fluid Mechanics are clearly unrelated to their specialty.Another complementary analysis can be performed using the survey administered by UPC.This includes 9 questons, of which 5 have been highlighted in relaton to this work: interest, learning, progress, Virtual Campus and satsfacton.Figure 5 shows a course score for each secton greater than 3, with a slight, yet hopeful positve evoluton, especially with regard to the use of the Virtual Campus, which is atributed to the online questonnaires.

CONCLUSIONS
The study allows us to draw the following relevant conclusions: • The fgures reveal that those groups with the largest number of students with specialtes related to the course subject mater show the best performance, fostering a much more motvatng and highperforming work environment, with fewer distractons and interruptons, which enhances learning.
• The distributons of the specialtes in the classroom lecture groups are not homogeneous and defnitely mark the trend of the group with regard to its evoluton throughout the course, which indicates that eforts should be made to improve this distributon.
• The number of students without a specialty increased from year to year, and their heterogeneous distributon makes it more difcult to concentrate eforts aimed at motvatng them.In terms of the total percentage, this increase was refected in the evoluton of the group with the largest percentage of failing grades, which was also the group with the largest percentage of students without a specialty.
• The cut-of grade for undergraduate studies at EET is the same for each specialty, and thus it was automatcally eliminated as an indicator in this study.
Nonetheless, the main conclusion of this work is the need for the study itself, to identfy more precise strategies focused on the teaching of Fluid Mechanics, in order to beter motvate those students who, due to a lack of knowledge or motvaton, fail to appreciate the importance of the subject in the overall context of their curriculum.These strategies should take into account that: • Actvites in which students actvely partcipate, where they are not merely passive recipients of informaton, are those that they like the best.
• Students value actvites in which they partcipate as a team.
• It is important to present practcal cases that have some connecton to the specialtes of the diferent groups of students.
• The course contents must be broken down to a greater degree in accordance with student expectatons.
• Eforts must be intensifed to provide guidance and assistance to those students who are the most "lost".
• One trend that has been observed is the proporton of all students without a declared specialty during the last period analyzed.This may be atributable to certain degree of uncertainty with regard to their professional future.
• If the students were divided into classroom lecture groups according to their specialtes, diferental instructon could be provided to each group, making the course more atractve and useful for each profle.
In terms of future work, it is difcult to predict the changes that would be the most successful and provocatve, where students with specialtes closely ted to Fluid Mechanics would show the greatest interest and obtain the most satsfactory results.The challenge lies in posing diferental instructon for students in the groups T, CH and NS.
Promising proposals for change could be the teaching of the basic principles that dominate Fluid Mechanics by presentng real, practcal cases that have to do with each of the specialtes, according to which the syllabus would not be organized in any theoretcal order, rather by applicaton.Students would be beter motvated by relatng Fluid Mechanics to the engineering degree they wish to study.
However, it should not be overlooked that the above also poses a risk that must be carefully assessed: learning and managing the basic principles and fundamentals that govern Fluid Mechanics through the presentaton of real cases could prove to be overwhelming.Instead of making the subject more accessible to the students and motvatng them, it might have the opposite efect.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Mental map of the environment and context surrounding the Fluid Mechanics course

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Percentage and number of passing/failing students by specialty.Academic year 2013/2014

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Percentage and number of passing/failing students by group.Academic year 2013/2014

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Evoluton of the ofcial course survey administered by the University (evaluaton scale: 1-Strongly disagree to 5-Strongly agree)

Table 1 .
Rubric and indicators for the assessment of partal and fnal exams in Fluid Mechanics

Table 2 .
Distributon of students by specialtes and groups.Academic year 2012/2013

Table 3 .
Distributon of students by specialtes and groups.Academic year 2013/2014 Figure 2. Percentages of the distributon of groups by specialtes.Academic year 2013/2014

Table 4 .
Academic year 2012/13 -Percentages of the distributon of students passing the course (the percentage of students failing the course is indicated in parentheses), by group and specialty

Table 5 .
Academic year 2013/14 -Percentages of the distributon of students passing the course (the percentage of students failing the course is indicated in parentheses), by group and specialty

Table 6 .
Academic year 2012/13 -Percentages of grades equal to or beter than 8/10, by group and specialty (the percentage of the total is indicated in parentheses)

Table 8 .
Academic year 2012/13 -Percentages of average passing grades (>=5/10 and <8/10), by group and specialty (the percentage of the total is indicated in parentheses)