Effective Engagement within the Hybrid Online & In-Person Teaching Modality: Practicing Diagrammatic Problem Solving

During the semesters of online teaching, instructional pedagogy was adjusted to provide the full outline of digital notes in advance of individual lectures with embedded practice problems. To maintain engagement, students were requested to provide additional annotation during the problem solving steps (i.e. draw control volumes, write full form of conservation equations). Online platforms of Blackboard Collaborate and Zoom did not allow measurement of participation. The effective elements from online engagement were attempted as integrated course content upon returning to in-person instruction in 2022 using the Top Hat personal response system (PRS). Examples of student submissions and declining rates of participation will foster an open forum discussion of finding the right prompts to solve three-dimensional fluid mechanics problems. Benefits and drawback of using the PRS for setting up real-time questions or assigned homework will be considered as the methodology affects student learning outcomes. The practice on incremental steps in problem solving are the foundation to the next generation of students solving the larger, integrated, and complex problems of the future.