CAUSATION PEDAGOGY FOR STUDENT PROJECTS USING MOLECULAR DYNAMICS AND FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS ...

CAUSATION PEDAGOGY FOR STUDENT PROJECTS USING MOLECULAR DYNAMICS AND FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS SOFTWARE PACKAGES IN POST-COVID ERA
Sunil Dehipawala, City University of New York Queensborough Community College, United States of America / Todd Holden, City University of New York Queensborough Community College, United States of America / Tak Cheung, City University of New York Queensborough Community College, United States of America
(Presented at the International Conference on Social and Education Sciences (IConSES), which took place on October 17-20, 2024 in Chicago, USA. (www.istes.org/..., and at the nternational Conference on Engineering, Science and Technology (IConEST) (www.istes.org/...) organized by the International Society for Technology, Education and Science (ISTES) www.istes.org).
Cause and effect in causation theory is a central pillar in student projects in terms of understanding with the promotion of memory, especially in an open-admission community college with the DEI focus. The KZbin tutorial videos posted by Educational Centers for delivery during the COVID Lockdown were found to be very helpful in reaching a minimum skill learning threshold. For instance, the use of molecular dynamics and finite element analysis software packages was found to be vital to support a variety of student projects in the context of biophysics and aerodynamics. The software packages of NAMD with CHARAM-GUI, LAMMPS, FEBio, ANSYS, OpenVSD, and OpenFOAM have been used as contents at the level of operation steps in terms of skill learning in a specific topic. It is important to keep track of the various pedagogical aspects at different cognition levels. On the one hand, a most obvious pedagogy would be the asking of students to analyze the result of a simulation to mimic an authentic analysis experience. On the other hand, a simulation objective relying on the what-if perspective would satisfy the critical thinking pedagogy. The verification of the simulation result by the experimental data could remain solely in the engineering realm with creativity as an objectivity in a pedagogy. The engineering verification examples could include protein folding data, wind tunnel data, etc. A straightforward extension to include a science perspective could be conducted in terms of causation in the understanding of the equations, without an absolute requirement of an understanding of the detailed math derivations used in the construction of a software package. Molecular dynamics examples in protein folding and material phase transition, and finite element analysis examples in aerodynamics and biophysics are illustrated with assessments. The online delivery and sustainability strategies in the post-COVID era are also discussed.