Teaching structural analysis theory with Jupyter Notebooks

Abstract

The STEAM model combines the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), forming a very relevant and increasingly fundamental educational approach within technologically advanced societies. Real‐world concepts and applications are associated in ways that encourage students to apply them whenever possible to their learning processes. In this context, Jupyter Notebooks and their highly innovative tools offer transparency for scientific research and the reproducibility of new findings. These virtual notebooks can be used to display text, video, and embedded interactive graphics. In this study, two laboratory sessions are described where students use the Jupyter Notebook to learn about the direct stiffness method. This study unit within the Theory of Structures and Industrial Constructions course module involves matrix structural analysis, requiring intensive matrix calculus and computational methods, which cannot be solved with pen and paper alone. Student use of the Jupyter Notebook when applying the direct stiffness method to the resolution of reticulated structures was studied in two laboratory sessions. An example of the software was first presented and explained. The students were then required to solve a series of problems of increasing difficultly where only part of the solution was available to check their results, thereby facilitating self‐directed learning. At the end of the session, the students were administered a survey to evaluate their satisfaction. The survey responses reflected their high levels of acceptance of this teaching methodology.

Assessingsolar: An Interactive Guide to Solar Resource Assessment in Python

“…Jupyter Notebooks have become popular in industry and academic research and are starting to make their way into education. The educational research goals of using Jupyter Notebooks include: (i) the use of a collaborative environment; (ii) self-directed learning; and (iii) an interactive learning environment (Suárez-García et al, 2021). From a developer's perspective, this means that all of the content for a section can be written in a single document, simplifying the writing process and allowing code examples to be at the center.…”

Jupyter Notebooks for the study of advanced topics in Fluid Mechanics

“…More recently, Golman [21] proposes a set of Jupyter Notebooks for the numerical analysis of chemical and enzyme-catalyzed reactions in a porous pellet. Suárez-García et al [45] present an experience of using Jupyter Notebooks as teaching material in the field of Structural Analysis. Specifically, they report the results of using Jupyter Notebooks in two lab sessions and at the end conduct a survey with 28 students about the experience.…”

Biotechnology data analysis training with Jupyter Notebooks

“…Several reports discuss problem-based learning and flipped classrooms in computational biology (15)(16)(17)(18). Also, Jupyter Notebooks are popular teaching resources in engineering (19,20) and guidelines for their setup are available (21,22). A particularly useful tool for motivation can be gamification and serious game elements (22,23), which contribute more strongly to positive self-assessment than exam results (24).…”