An Effective Use of Visual Aids for Teaching Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) Laboratory - A Case Study

Abstract

This paper presents use of visual aid to improve the teaching of skill based laboratory course. Teaching of a laboratory course where knowledge and skills are imparted to the students through hands on is bit different from other courses. CAM Laboratory is one of such courses. In CAD/CAM/CAE and similar laboratory courses, at the start of every new experiment course instructor first explains the related theory and then demonstrates the various software tools to be used for the experiment using suitable software application. Students will then complete the experiments using the knowledge and skills (software tools) taught by the course instructor. It is observed that at the beginning of every new experiment students are stuck with some problems and could not continue the experiment. In such case students calls the faculty for the guidance. Many times situation arises when numbers of students are stuck with problem and need assistance of the course instructor to solve the problem. Course instructor can attend only one student at a time and other students have to wait for their turn to come. This problem can be solved by using visual aids like video clips. When teacher is demonstrating various software tools to students he/she can capture the screen activities in a video clip,. This video clip is then shared with students. When students are practicing these tools and stuck with some problem they will refer the video clip and can solve problem on their own. No need for the teacher to come to guide them in solving the problems. I have taught CAM Laboratory course to the M. Tech. Mechanical (Production engineering) students in last semester. I realised at the middle of semester that many students are facing the problems at the beginning of new semester. I started capturing the screen activities in a video clip while I was demonstrating the software tools to the students. These clips were then shared with students. Students used these clips to solve the problem on their own. This practice resulted in i) less number of calls from the students to solve their problems ii) Students could complete the experiments in much lesser time than they used to earlier iii) performance grades of the students improved as they could submit the experiments in time.