Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.18260/1-2--60774

Publication Title

2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Pages

11 pp.

Conference Name

2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, June 21-June 24, 2026, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

Abstract

Engineering education has gradually shifted from deep conceptual teaching to a culture dominated by presentation slides. In many universities today, core courses such as Statics, Dynamics, and Mechanics of Materials are taught through PowerPoint files rather than through reasoning, derivation, and problem solving. While slide-based instruction may appear efficient, it encourages passive learning and has severely weakened students’ ability to think independently and make sound engineering judgments. Traditionally, these fundamental courses were taught by seasoned instructors who had mastered the subjects and took genuine pride in explaining complex ideas with clarity and passion. They guided students through the logic behind equations and helped them develop true engineering intuition. In contrast, many current instructors teach these courses merely to satisfy workload requirements. They often lack deep mastery of the material and rely almost entirely on publisher-provided slides, reading them verbatim without engaging students in real conceptual thinking. This practice has gradually destroyed the analytical common sense that engineering education was meant to build. As a result, many students complete their undergraduate programs without understanding the essence of engineering fundamentals. They may pass exams through memorization but later struggle in design courses, professional practice, and even graduate school because they never learned to reason through the core principles of mechanics and material behavior. The problem is compounded by the fact that universities increasingly prioritize research output, grant acquisition, and publication metrics, while giving only superficial attention to teaching quality. Despite claims of valuing education, institutional systems rarely reward genuine teaching excellence. This paper draws on classroom observations, student feedback, and comparative performance data to demonstrate how concept-centered instruction produces far stronger outcomes than slide-based teaching. It calls for a renewed commitment to teaching mastery, deeper faculty engagement with core subjects, and a return to the intellectual rigor that once defined engineering education.

Rights

© 2026 American Society for Engineering Education.

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2026 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. 

Original Publication Citation

Nayyeri Amiri, S., & EisaZadeh, H. (2026). When slides replace thinking: How PowerPoint culture undermines conceptual learning in engineering education [Conference paper]. 2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Charlotte, North Carolina. https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--60774

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