RIGHT SIDE OF THE LAW

Improving students' knowledge of foundational principles is a major concern of engineering educators. One particular challenge occurs in introductory thermodynamics, when many students struggle to understand the first law, or conservation of energy principle. Their study shows that students' knowledge of the first law can be improved by an educational intervention designed as a homework assignment. The goal of the intervention is to improve conceptual reasoning ability by helping students organize their knowledge and generate connections across associated knowledge elements. Although they focused on learning in thermodynamics, the design principles underlying the intervention can be applied to other engineeringrelated content that requires understanding of the organizational structure across knowledge elements and how connections should be drawn across that structure.