In the field of civil/geotechnical engineering, students conduct a variety of soil tests to fulfill undergraduate soil mechanics course requirement. There is a range of problems in soil laboratory instruction, such as, some students not getting hands on experience of conducting tests because of inadequate number of apparatus, time constraints and inability in exciting students to seriously conduct the experiments. However when these laboratory soil tests are simulated with multimedia

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... and visualization techniques, the student's conceptual understanding of soil mechanics is enhanced. The methodology presented in this paper is based on presenting students with simulation of laboratory soil tests, which creates an individualized, interactive and guided learning environment. The main elements of this approach are: a means of assimilating the students' interactive learning knowledge and behavior (user model), representation of the instructor's guidance and assessment knowledge (tutor model), utilization of motivational techniques such as multimedia, animation (visual model) and simulated laboratory test model (simulation model). As an example, the presented paper provides the learning environment to understand soil characteristics such as grain size distribution. The approach adopted in this research is that of intelligent interactive learning environment, which is developed, using Java simulation. This contains basic interrelated definitions (concepts), various graphic presentation of soil characteristics, test procedures and Java simulation of dynamic laboratory testing. Although the presented approach is being applied to understand basic soil mechanics, it employs a generic architecture, which is discipline independent and can be adapted to any other similar domain which will certainly promote and enhance students' understanding.