Creating an Effective Learning Environment in Engineering Graphics Course for First Year Engineering Students

Thinking and learning are irresistible for human but they differ on individual's cognitive abilities. Engineering education demands active and experiential learning for experiencing demonstrable technical and professional skills. The practice of active learning strategies is gaining momentum in Indian engineering education. Engaging today's learners i.e. Millennial learners, in learning activities, is a challenging task for a teacher in a constrained physical learning environment. The responsibility of the teacher is to create an effective learning environment to promote students' intended learning. The learning environment is characterized by the learners, learning activities and learning outcomes. This paper presents a different kind of an experience gained in creating an effective learning environment in Engineering Graphics course for the first year (freshman) engineering students for improving their spatial visualization. This also portrays a variety of blended learning activities employed in building confidence amongst students. The learning strategies have been developed to overcome the challenges so as to create an effective learning environment among students. While employing such learning approaches, the factors like engaging students, using appropriate strategies, balancing the content length with the level of learning, managing time and infrastructure, and measuring the of success of activity should be considered. These well-structured activities are executed with the appropriate supportive learning resources. The impact of blended teaching strategies and their sequence on improving students' learning in this course has also been assessed through structured feedback and informal interactions. The results demonstrate a significant improvement in students' learning experience through a set of active learning strategies.