A blended learning approach to enhance learning and teaching of fluid mechanics : an example demonstrating success

Fluid Mechanics is a core subject in civil, mechanical, chemical and aeronautical engineering undergraduate courses. This subject needs a relatively strong background in mathematics and physics, which is not well satisfied for a good number of students enrolled to fluid mechanics subject in Australian universities. This paper presents a case study on teaching and learning of fluid mechanics at University of Western Sydney (UWS), Australia. In UWS, fluid mechanics was rated as a high-failure subject based on the data over a decade. More recently, UWS has adopted a Blended Learning Approach (BLA) to teach fluid mechanics to its undergraduate classes. In the adopted BLA, various learning materials have been made available to the students such as online recorded lectures, online recorded tutorials, hand written tutorial solutions, discussion board and online practice quizzes. Based on the data of over 734 students over 4-year period, it has been shown in this paper that a BLA has improved the learning experience and success rate of the fluid mechanics students in UWS. The findings of this paper would be useful in adopting a BLA to other subjects to enhance the learning of fluid mechanics and similar subjects.