Lesson Plan
I.Concepts to be taught: Cooperative learning, geometric tolerances.
II. Instructional techniques: I like to pair the students into groups with people that they are not always familiar with, and I always split the students according to ability, putting the better students amongst each group, therefore, giving no group any unfair advantage over another.
III. Objectives: Each student will learn what geometric tolerances are, and how to apply them to geometric designs.
IV. Time requirements: This lesson will take approximately one week to complete.
V. Tools/equipment: Calipers, 3D geometric parts, (or drawings of parts) computers, CAD software.
VI. Supplies/materials: Please feel free to contact me for materials at the address or phone number listed in the abstract.
VII. Teacher presentation and student activitites: (assuming block scheduling with three 1.5 hour blocks in a one week period).
Day 1: Arrange for a guest speaker from industry to talk about the importance of tolerances in manufactured parts (45 min.). Teach the students how to apply tolerances to parts with dimensioning techniques. Assign the students to groups, and handout the drawings of the part that each group is to construct via use of the computer and CAD software. Students may begin the design phase if time permits (45 min.).
Day 2: Re-teach tolerance applications or answer any questions pertaining to tolerancing. Have students begin or continue to work on the design of each part that they were given. Remind students that their projects will be due at the end of the next block.
Day 3: Once again, remind students that their projects will be due at the end of this block. Answer any questions that they may have, and monitor their progress throughout the block. Collect their work at the end of the block, after it has been printed out in hard copy.
VIII. References/text required: There are no specific references or text. There are many ideas for problems in drafting books. Once again, please contact me for further info.
IX. Inter-disciplinary linkage: This lesson applies to math, and business areas. Students may opt to "job shadow" an engineer in one of their Basic Skills Technology (BST) classes.
X. Evaluation Strategies: Evaluation of this project can be done in a number of ways:
1. Have the entire group come together, and look the drawings over to see if the parts will "fit" with each other.
2. Ask a fabrication shop to build the parts, and bring the parts back to the classroom to physically show the students how well their parts either fit or did not fit together.
3. Ask an engineer to look the drawings over to critique them.
XI. Common problems: Keeping the students on task, problems with the computers or CAD usage, problems with output.
XII. Attachments: Please contact me for materials.