• Professor Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering West Virginia University (Morgantown - United States)

  Started: 1992-09-01 - Finished: 1993-05-01

  Currently Adjunct Professor.

• Investigador Superior Ingenieria (Cordoba - Argentina)

  Started: 1981-05-01 - Currently working.

• Profesor Titular Estructuras (Cordoba - Argentina)

  Started: 1980-05-01 - Currently working.

• Grantee, Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvements (CCLI), US National Science Foundation (Washington DC - United States)

  Started: 2007-05-01 - Finished: 2010-05-01

  NSF award 2007-2010 (Course, Curriculum and  Project title: A COMPUTER-BASED SIMULATED ENVIRONMENT TO LEARN ON STRUCTURAL FAILURES IN ENGINEERING

   

  Under this CCLI project we developed on-line tools based on the approach of Active Learning in a Simulated Environment (ALSE) to teach engineering failures and lessons that can be learned from them to improve design. The effort concentrated on low-cost educational tools that could be developed without having access to large funding and resources, as would be the case of most engineering faculty interested in the extension of this approach to cover their own interests.

  Based on our experience in implementing ALSE tools in Civil Engineering classes, we found that undergraduate and graduate students were able to complete the proposed activities without the need to have an experienced faculty member available to coach or help them during their work. This is important because it marks a difference between learning tools that require the presence of a human tutor (who knows about the subject contents) helping the student along the way, and a more autonomous tool (as in the present case) that can be used at a different location from the place where the tool was originally developed. The moduli developed under the present CCLI project are self-contained in the sense that the participating students carry out the tasks without the need to consult a faculty member during the activity because the tools provide on-line virtual tutors to help the student with just-on-time expert advice. The importance of this finding is related to the portability of the tools, so that they can be used at other locations by other faculty members.

  From the application of ALSE tools developed under this project, we learned that students perceive that they learn more than in a traditional lecture. The reasons expressed in questionnaires and interviews are because they have to apply the new concepts immediately (rather than differing their application to a later stage), and because they had to learn new concepts motivated by the fact that they need such concepts to solve a problem that has been posed to them. Further, they enjoy this form of activity because they like to be placed in the role of active investigators rather than being passive listeners. They state that they can construct the knowledge that they need by doing research oriented to the solution of a problem. Finally, students can associate knowledge with a story in which they play a role, rather than storing knowledge in a vacuum, and in this way our study shows that they increase learning retention.

  Regarding learning assessment, the performance of students employing ALSE tools can be evaluated in order to establish differences in performances among students. Not only pass/fail grades can be used as evaluation, but more subtle differences in student learning can be identified based on their response to the challenge posed to them.

• Professor Civil Engineering (Mayaguez - Puerto Rico)

  Started: 1994-05-01 - Finished: 2011-12-01

• Profesor Titular Estructuras (Cordoba - Argentina)

  Started: 1981-05-01 - Currently working.

  Teaching Elasticity, Plates and Shells at undergraduate level.

  Teaching "Advanced Mechanics of Materials", "Theory of Elastic Stability" at graduate (masters and PhD) level.

   

• Civil Engineering, Ph D University College London (London - United Kingdom)

  Started: 1975-09-01 - Finished: 1979-04-01

• Ingeniería Civil, B Sc (Cordoba - Argentina)

  Started: 1969-03-01 - Finished: 1974-12-01

• Premio AMCA

  Date: 09/14

  Premio AMCA 2014 “A la trayectoria docente, profesional y científica en Argentina”, otorgado por la Asociación Argentina de Mecánica Computacional, 25 Septiembre 2014.

• Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing

  Date: 05/13

  Certificate of Excellence in Reviewing, otorgado por Elsevier.

• Premio “Arturo M. Guzmán de Ingeniería Estructural”

  Date: 11/02

  Premio “Arturo M. Guzmán de Ingeniería Estructural”, otorgado por la Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Buenos Aires.

No other experience info.