Power engineering education and the Internet: motivation andinstructional tools

Alternatives in the application of the Internet are applied to power engineering education. Because the student perception of power engineering is often that this is an old technology, new ways to effectively present the challenges, and the opportunities as well, are needed. The Internet and innovative graphic and textural materials are suggested to effectively present the case for power engineering as a valuable career. This is suggested to build on student interest in these computer technologies. The contents of web sites for this purpose are described, and the educational pedagogy of the method is discussed     

Electrical Engineering Education in an Industrial Laboratory

This paper describes a unique electrical engineering laboratory course. This laboratory is an example of industry-university cooperation in engineering education. The organization and operation of the course is outlined and explained. The educational benefits derived from such cooperation between industry and the university are briefly detailed. These benefits are extended to the students, the university, the faculty, and the participating industry. This paper provides the framework and challenge to industry from which other laboratory experiences can be conceived and developed.     

Crazy Car Race Contest: Multicourse Design Curricula in Embedded System Design

This paper reports on recent initiatives aimed at significantly enhancing the teaching of engineering design at the Westcoast University of Applied Sciences. A good design experience offers opportunities for learning to synthesize, solve, and utilize a given problem. Design problems should be open-ended, moderately difficult, and common to all groups. The outcome of creating a multicourse design project, with the intention of attending an international design contest (Crazy Car Race), is described. Students with different design experience have to work together to build a racing car which navigates a given route autonomously. The course structure, its placement in the regular curriculum, and the student and instructor's evaluation results are presented and discussed     

Engineering your electrical engineering education

Electrical and computer engineering (ECE) courses are usually structured in such a way to provide the student with the basics to solve problems in the field and then challenge the student with increasingly more difficult problems to effectively stretch those basic problem-solving approaches into more advanced techniques. While most of this problem-solving focus is placed on the technical arena, this is only one part of the educational experience for an ECE student. There are many nontechnical facets to one problem-solving repertoire that require development to become a successful practicing engineer in industry or academia after graduation. This article serves to provide some of these facets in a career-direction informational guide to junior- and senior-level undergraduate students and graduate students early in their ECE career. It also serves as a guide to outline some useful strategies not found in an engineering text to maximize one's educational experience at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as the transition between them.     

A Course in Creative Problem Solving

This paper briefly describes a three credit-hour undergraduate senior-level course, Creative Problem Solving, which has been taught for four years in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida. Particular emphasis is placed on the techniques found successful for teaching a course in engineering creativity, since knowledge of such techniques has constituted a deterrent to many desiring to teach such a course. The purposes and typical examples of classroom and outside activities are presented. The activities deliberately contain strong student participation both individually and in small groups. The course described seeks to impart to students a workable approach to the technique of solving complex engineering problems. It simultaneously orients and develops the students' attitudes toward recognition of the role played by creativity in actual engineering problem solving. Though the present course is oriented toward electrical engineers, it is believed that the essential methodology used could, with some modifications, be adapted to other undergraduate engineering disciplines. An attempt is made to appraise the effectiveness of the overall course. Some of the unsolved teaching problems are also exposed.     

Adaptive mobile web services facilitate communication and learning Internet technologies

The broad acceptance of mobile technology has undoubtedly created new opportunities in communication. The proposed environment attempts to enhance the information flow among the members of a department and, furthermore, to provide a test-bed mobile Web application for students undertaking Internet technologies courses. The key ideas are to support the educational process to provide auxiliary access to educational information sources, such as announcements, course schedules, grades, and user directory details. As a second system integration step, additional mobile Web services were introduced, such as application forms of the department's administration office, project assignment, and discussion groups. Technological evaluation and students' feedback indicate that the proposed solution is both efficient in communication perspective and effective for student involvement in the mobile Web initiative. Future steps include multimedia messages (MMS) integration and third-generation (3G)-based information delivery.     

Practicing engineering in a freshman introductory course

This paper discusses a teaching experience obtained in the undergraduate course of Control Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. The course endeavors to introduce the students to the university and to the real world of engineering and to develop an understanding of basic engineering concepts and foster professional skills. By introducing practicing engineering to the course from day one, student motivation is increased, and the relationship between theoretical and practical aspects of engineering is demonstrated more clearly. This "hands-on approach" allows the student a greater insight into the life of an engineer. It strengthens a weakness found in established teaching methods, allowing the individual to embark on his or her engineering education with greater confidence in his or her ability as an engineer.     

A course on computer modeling for second or third year engineeringundergraduates

A course on computer modeling for sophomores and juniors at Harvey Mudd College is described. The rationale for such a course is three fold: it teaches students the role of computation in engineering problem solving; fills the present hiatus between the freshman year, where programming is taught, and the senior year, where attempts are made, after many students have forgotten the programming they learned, to use those skills in coursework; and provides a means of introducing the student to the design cycle of testing through analysis and changing designs, until performance criteria are met     

A Tutorial Presentation of Statistical Procedures for Educational Experiments in Engineering Laboratories

This paper describes, in tutorial fashion, statistical procedures for educational experiments involving engineering laboratories. The sequence of the procedures is 1) formulation of the problem, 2) formulation of the hypotheses, 3) identification of the sample, 4) specification of the population, 5) construction of measuring items, 6) collecting data in cognitive and affective domains, 7) statistical analysis of the data, and 8) conclusions based on statistical analysis. This study was carried out at Michigan State University in an electrical engineering course (108 students). The statistical analysis was based on the outcome of four tests: pretest, posttest, retention test, and student attitude test.     

Introducing software engineering developments to a classical operating systems course

An operating system course draws from a well-defined fundamental theory, but one needs to consider how more recent advances, not necessarily in the theory itself, can be applied to improve the course and the general body of knowledge of the student. The goal of This work is to show how recent software engineering developments can be introduced to such a course to not only satisfy the theory requirements, but also make the theory more understandable. In particular, This work focuses on how students can effectively learn the Unified Modeling Language, the object-oriented methodology, and the Java programming language in the context of an operating systems course. The goal is to form a systematic software engineering process for operating system design and implementation.     

A Semiconductor Technology Course

A one-year semiconductor technology course for undergraduate senior electrical engineering students is described. The course consists of one semester of lecture followed by one semester of laboratory. The material covered in the lecture is demonstrated to the students by field trips to local industry and in their laboratory. Highly sophisticated technology such as ion-implantation is demonstrated in field trips and technology such as thermal diffusion is encountered by the student in his laboratory course. "Thus, whenever possible, the student can relate his lecture material to observation. The laboratory consists of a complete processing operation where the student starts with a crystal boule and fabricates a packaged device whose terminal characteristics are measured. He or she thus obtains some feeling for the effects of processing on terminal characteristics. Projects are used in conjunction with the laboratory to improve some of the process steps and to give the student some experience in tackling nonstructured problems which are more closely related to professional activities after graduation.     

A microprocessor course: designing and implementing personal microcomputers

This paper describes a microprocessor course for electrical and computer engineering students in which every student designs and implements his/her own microcomputer system step by step according to the course schedule. Although this microprocessor course requires considerable time and effort, it provides students with invaluable experience and helps them to understand microprocessors much more thoroughly. The schedule of this course and its assignments, aimed at designing and implementing personal microcomputers, is described in detail. The results of student evaluations of this course are also described.     

Implementing CS1 with embedded instructional research design in laboratories

Closed laboratories are becoming an increasingly popular approach to teaching introductory computer science courses. Unlike open laboratories that tend to be an informal environment provided for students to practice their skills with attendance optional, closed laboratories are structured meeting times that support the lecture component of the course, and attendance is required. This paper reports on an integrated approach to designing, implementing, and assessing laboratories with an embedded instructional research design. The activities reported here are parts of a departmentwide effort not only to improve student learning in computer science and computer engineering (CE) but also to improve the agility of the Computer Science and Engineering Department in adapting the curriculum to changing technologies, incorporate research, and validate the instructional strategies used. This paper presents the design and implementation of the laboratories and the results and analysis of student performance. Also described in this paper is cooperative learning in the laboratories and its impact on student learning.     

Establishment of a university course in electromagneticcompatibility (EMC)

The establishment, content, and experience with an undergraduate course in electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) in an electrical engineering program is described. The course has met with very favorable student reaction and enthusiasm. Current college/university curricula do not generally contain such a course although the material is rapidly becoming fundamental aspect of electrical engineering design. The means for implementing the course into an already crowded curriculum along with the use of several brief laboratories to motivate the students are discussed     

An Undergraduate Design/Project Course Utilizing a Microcomputer

Project-based courses offer one of the greatest education opportunities in an electrical engineering student's undergraduate curriculum. The ultimate success of this type of educational experience is keyed primarily to 1) the selection of a project with a high chance of success along with the right amount of challenge and 2) adequate planning. Faculty may choose to avoid a microcomputer-based design/ project due to their lack of experience in selecting suitable projects and planning for the support required. This paper describes a project which has considerable flexibility for individual definition of goals and, hence, the amount of challenge can, in some sense, be customized. The support required for a microcomputer-based design/project is distinct from that of a conventional design/project course. These planning and support requirements for microcomputer-based projects are described along with the course structure, content and approach to grading     

Electrical Engineering Education in the U.S.

Electrical engineering education in the U.S. is described for comparison with other educational systems discussed in this issue on international education. Some of the changes that have taken place since World War II are given, including enrollments, popularity of fields in terms of student choice and employment opportunities, reduction in the structure of the curriculum, and differing views on the time required to reach the first engineering degree. Finally, some guidelines are offered for the future development of education for electrical engineering in the U. S.     

Concept maps for engineering education: a cognitively motivatedtool supporting varied assessment functions

Assessment in the context of education is the process of characterizing what a student knows. The reasons to perform assessment are quite varied, ranging from a need to informally understand student learning progress in a course to a need to characterize student expertise in a subject. Finding an appropriate assessment tool is a central challenge in designing an assessment approach. The focus of this paper is on the use of concept maps for both course-level and program-level assessment in engineering education. Concept maps, which are node and arc representations of the relationships among concepts, provide one means to represent student knowledge. This paper presents background on concept maps and describes uses of concept maps at both the course and program level     

Use of web-based materials to teach electric circuit theory

Beginning fall 2001, the Electrical Engineering Department at Texas A&M University, College Station, significantly altered the instructional philosophy of the ELEN 214 Electric Circuit Theory course by introducing more engineering design into the curriculum and adopting the WebCT-based interactive homework submission system. This paper will discuss the use of the Quiz tool within WebCT for the construction of question banks and their publication to a WebCT server. An example, deriving mathematical expressions, which describes electric circuit behavior and helps customize the homework problems to each individual student, are discussed. In other words, in a class of 200 students, each student is presented with an individual homework assignment with a unique set of problems not repeated to anyone else via WebCT. A help desk staffed by senior undergraduates assists the course students in completing the WebCT-based homework on time. WebCT is an essential ingredient in the delivery of the course. The approach presented in this paper can be adapted to any other course in engineering/science that involves mathematical calculations. So far, the course evaluations suggest that the students are more motivated and excited about electrical and computer engineering as a career.     

Engineering Education in Mexico

One consequence of the remarkable growth rate in the Mexican economy over the past two decades has been an equally remarkable engineering student population explosion, particularly during the decade of the 1960's. The present situation is, however, paradoxical in that the considerable improvement in educational opportunity and participation may well be out-pacing the growth rate which the economy can healthily maintain. This paper discusses the implications of this paradox on future trends and needed controls in educational development. Undergraduate and graduate engineering education, faculty, administration, and the status of engineering research in Mexico are described and discussed.     

Motivating Engineering Freshmen through an Authentic Design Experience

As an integral part of the required course "Introduction to Engineering," every freshman engineer at Arizona State University is involved in a realistic design project. The object is to give the student a clear idea of the role of the engineer, the challenges he faces, and the skills he must acquire. In this project, each student works as a member of an "engineering firm" which develops a new design that is based on one of a number of ideas originally generated by the students themselves. This paper describes how this design competition is organized. This design experience, running through the entire semester, is paralleled by weekly lectures by prominent engineers from industry, as well as by formal conventional instruction in the elements of engineering analysis and computation.