:This paper explores the pedagogical treatments of kinematics in European and American textbooks of theoretical mechanics. 10 textbooks written by the masters of mechanics in France, British, Germany and the US are reviewed to show the historical evolution of teaching materials of kinematics. The motion of points, the motion of rigid-bodies, and the composite motions are analyzed for 7 American textbooks, 2 Germany textbooks and a Russian textbook. Based on the analysis, a few features are highlighted for possible references.
With the rise of new technological revolution, mechanics calls for revitalization to accommodate the characteristics of the new era, and the undergraduate phase of higher education is the first to be affected. Based on the guidelines of mechanics development and teaching practices in the Department of Mechanics Engineering of Zhejiang University, a new undergraduate curriculum is proposed for the mechanics major, in which the basic courses are taken as the root, the core professional courses as the trunk and the multidisciplinary courses as the leaves to form the tree of mechanics. We hope that this new curriculum, or "Mechanics 3.0" for abbreviation, may provide a guidance for mechanics higher educators.
In the mechanics education, it is urgently needed to enhance the qualities of students in solid foundation and creative ability. Even though the enhancement has been widely recognized in the Chinese circle of mechanics education, some problems remain open in practice. Based on the talent development law, the cognitive learning law and the practice innovation law, three problems are analyzed, including the curriculum optimization, the design and development of teaching materials, and the innovation in practice, and the corresponding suggestions are made. Among them, some have been validated to be possible solutions in practice.