Ready to refresh your welding program? Realityworks’ welding solutions can help you boost student engagement, attract students to your welding program, and increase career exploration.
In a recent webinar, Realityworks Education Programs Manager Jamey McIntosh walked attendees through five powerful, hands-on learning aids and share tips for successful implementation of each tool. Read on to see what he had to say about these engaging teaching tools and how to boost student engagement.
You’ll also get access to a free lesson from our Common Welding Joints Curriculum, plus our “Safety Personal Protective Equipment” presentation slides!
Get the resources
Tips for Boosting Student Engagement
- Create Routine and Schedules: When students know what’s coming and what to expect from your welding program, it alleviates anxiety and helps them be more prepared for class.
- Create Anticipation and Excitement: Let students know about exciting activities to come, such as Welding Wednesdays, competitions on Fridays, or big projects.
- Allow for Repetition and Repeatability: Repetition is important for student skill development. If you have a lesson or project that excites students, continue to use that lesson in classes to come. Also, continue gathering resources for these lessons to create more engaging activities around the subject.
- Create Avenues to Learn About Career Exploration: Allow students to explore careers to learn what the job is and if it’s something they would like to pursue in the future.
- Work to Define What Success Looks like Together: Each student has their own unique talents and skills. What measure of success is fair for everyone? Get on the same page about what success looks like so students know what they need to do to achieve that success. This is especially important for students who are new to welding.
- Bring Challenges and Competition into the Classroom: Not only are competitions fun activities for students, but they also help students see what they’re good at and areas can they improve in.
Engaging Tools for Welding Programs
1. guideWELD® VR
guideWELD VR is a virtual welding system that offers guidance on stick and MIG welding technique. Students in your welding program will do the weld themselves while seeing it on a computer screen. This system gives them feedback on speed, travel and work angle, nozzle plate distance, and straightness. It assesses students on all these techniques and provides an overall score with graphs of student progress.
2. guideWELD® LIVE real welding guidance system
The guideWELD LIVE real welding guidance system provides real time corrective feedback in every welding booth for MIG and stick welds. This feedback comes from nine default WPS’s with customization available. The helmet gives students guidance on their work and travel angle as well as speed. It’s like having an instructor in your welding helmet!
3. RealCareer™ Weld Defects Classroom Kit
Once they’ve done the weld, students need to know how well they did. The RealCareer Weld Defects Classroom Kit lets students compare their welds to the models in the kit to see if they did a quality weld or not. If they don’t have a quality weld, they can identify what they did wrong and how to correct it. This portable, lightweight kit contains 13 plastic models, depicting 12 of the most common welding defects as well as one quality weld.
4. Common Welding Joints Kit
The Common Welding Joints Kit has 10 common welding joint models that allow students to see what their joints should look like and what passes for a quality weld. We worked closely with an AWS-certified welding inspector and educator to create these models. Each 10-piece kit includes both SMAW and GMAW coupon examples made of lightweight plastic.
5. RealCareer™ Bend Tester
Once you’ve done your weld, how do you know you’ve done it correctly? The RealCareer Bend Tester and accompanying curriculum walks through the AWS D1.1 code. It covers bending basics and qualifications needed when you perform a bend test to see if your weld was quality or not. Designed with education in mind, this eight-ton hydraulic, manual-guided bend test fixture allows educators to conduct destructive weld testing in a classroom as well as a welding lab.
Successful Implementation
When you put it all together, the guideWELD program allows your current or new welding program to become an immersive learning environment. Student can learn and master basic skills before moving to the booth. Once in the booth, they can use guideWELD LIVE to continue developing their skills. This gives the teacher time to really work with struggling students more, while students with the guideWELD tools can develop their skills independently.
Student can self-assess their work by identifying defects, learning what causes them, and progress to professionally testing the weld for integrity, as they would in a real-world job. See how one high school uses these engaging tools in the video below.
Additional Resources
Looking for more resources and activities for your welding program?
- Download your own copy of “Lesson One: Welding Safety” from our Common Welding Joints Curriculum, plus our “Safety Personal Protective Equipment” presentation slides
- Learn more about 21st century welding education in this case study
- Watch the full webinar here