Which teaching aid is an excellent tool for illustrating mechanical or spatial concepts?

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Discussion on the Reform of Teaching Methods of

Mechanical Drawing

Qingran Hu

College of Mechanical Engineering,

Hubei University of Automotive Technology

Shiyan, Hubei, China

Abstract—Mechanical drawing mainly studies the use of

engineering drawings to express spatial solids, which is the

“language” used to exchange information in the engineering field.

However, the course is difficult for beginners, and students tend

to be weary of learning. Then how to inspire students' interest in

learning and how to focus students' attention on the lecture are

the problems that teachers need to think about urgently. At the

same time, the previous teaching methods also need to be

changed. First of all, teachers can encourage students to make

their own teaching aids, which is more impressive than using

existing teaching aids. Secondly, some chapters can reduce

teaching time. Teachers assign tasks to students, and students get

detailed information by themselves. After self-study, students will

organize these materials into a report and submit it. The teachers

verify the learning effect and give an evaluation. In the process of

implementation, teachers should play a role of guidance and

supervision. The purpose is to put students in the main position

and make them participate more in the teaching process.

Keywords—change; interest; evaluation; supervision;

participate

I. INTRODUCTION

Mechanical drawing is a basic course for students majoring

in science and engineering, which is usually offered in the first

year of University. This course is to study the use of plane

graphics to express the shape, size and location of three-

dimensional space, etc. It has little connection with the

knowledge of students in junior and senior high schools, and it

can almost be treated as a new thing. Generally speaking, this

course is a process of thinking from object to drawing and

from drawing to object. The purpose of this course is not only

to cultivate students' ability of drawing and reading

engineering drawings, but also to train students' ability of

spatial imagination. However, some students are not good at

spatial imagination and study very hard. After the fresh feeling

of contacting new things disappears, they begin to have no

interest in the class and treat it negatively.

At present, the course is mainly made by teachers using

three-dimensional software, animation, teaching aids and other

means to enable students to understand the knowledge, and

after class students do exercises to consolidate what they have

learned[1]. The teachers are dominant, and the students

passively accept the knowledge given by the teachers. There is

interaction in the class but time is limited. In the course of

teaching, once students can't keep up with the teachers' ideas,

their attention will be distracted, and it's hard to put them back

into the class. After a few times, the enthusiasm for learning is

obviously reduced. Students will play mobile phones or do

other things unrelated to learning in class. In addition, the

mechanical drawing requires students to have the ability of

spatial imagination, but some students have the poor ability of

it. Although there are three-dimensional software, animation,

teaching aids to assist students in learning, the effect of these

tools is not the same. The effect of teaching aids is good, but it

can't be guaranteed that everyone has them. The others can be

seen but not touched. It's also difficult for this part of students

to understand, and the learning efficiency is very low. How to

improve this situation, how to improve students' interest in

learning, how to increase students' participation in the

classroom, is an urgent problem to be solved.

II. REFORM OF TEACHING METHODS

A. Making Teaching Aids

First of all, in the teaching process, it is necessary to

change the role of students, so that students can change from

passive acceptance to active learning. Here are my personal

views on the reform of teaching methods of mechanical

drawing. According to the teaching order, students should first

learn the projection of points, lines and planes, then the

projection of solids and their intersections, composite solids,

general principles of representation, detail drawings,

commonly used parts and assembly drawings[2]. When

students learn the projection of solids and their intersections,

they begin to feel difficult. In class, teachers usually use three-

dimensional software to operate or show the models (as shown

in Fig.1) to let students learn the drawing method of

intersecting lines[3]. However, due to the problem of angle or

short time, some students can't observe the real shape of

intersecting lines, and they are shy or unwilling to go to the

teacher to borrow the models to see again. In class, it is not

effective to achieve the teaching objectives. The best way is

that each student has a physical model to study. However,

because the number of students is large and the number of

models is small, the demand cannot be met. At this time, the

teachers can divide the students into groups, arrange each

group to sit together and distribute one of the models. Two

classes should be set aside. Students use the plasticine to make

the same shape according to the given model, and make

teaching aids by themselves. After that, each group exchanges

models until all types of models are made by themselves. At

Teaching research and reform project of Hubei University of Automotive

Technology (JY2019021)

Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 385

3rd International Conference on Education, Economics and Management Research (ICEEMR 2019)

Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 683