How articulate virtual labs can help in thermodynamics education: a multiple case study

There are few examples of innovative educational practice in thermodynamics courses. This paper describes the use of CyclePad-an articulate virtual laboratory for creating and analyzing thermodynamics cycles-in thermodynamics classes at three different schools. Student surveys show that from working with the program they increased their understanding of thermodynamics, learned some problem solving strategies and found certain calculations to be faster and easier. By working with a computer-based tool, instructors were able to assign problems which were more realistic than text book problems. Of the three schools, the school with the greater computer resources had an easier time implementing the software. The school with the most constraints on its curriculum was less able to take advantage of the software.