A project-oriented course in probability and statistics for undergraduate electrical engineering students

An introductory course in probability and statistics for third-year and fourth-year electrical engineering students is described. The course is centered around several computer-based projects that are designed to achieve two objectives. First, the projects illustrate the course topics and provide hands-on experience for the students. The second and equally important objective of the projects is to convey the relevance and usefulness of probability and statistics to practical problems that undergraduate students can appreciate. The benefit of this course as to motivate electrical engineering students to excel in the study of probability concepts, instead of viewing the subject as one more course requirement toward graduation. The authors co-teach the course, and MATLAB is used for mast of the computer-based projects

Students at University of Michigan do research in the electrical engineering laboratory in the College of Engineering

Shown recording data are, left to right, John P. Vajda, Milwaukee WI, and James A. Lovell, Grand Rapids, MI. graduate students in electrical engineering.

Strategies to engage engineering students in group project work

Project focused group work is significant in developing social and personal skills as well as extending the ability to identify, formulate and solve engineering problems. As a result of increasing undergraduate class sizes, along with the requirement for many students to work part-time, group projects, peer and collaborative learning are seen as a fundamental part of engineering education. Group formation, connection to learning objectives and fairness of assessment has been widely reported as major issues that leave students dissatisfied with group project based units. Several strategies were trialled including a study of formation of groups by different methods across two engineering disciplines over the past 2 years. Other strategies involved a more structured approach to assessment practices of civil and electrical engineering disciplines design units. A confidential online teamwork management tool was used to collect and collate student self and peer assessment ratings and used for both formative feedback as well as assessment purposes. Student satisfaction and overall academic results in these subjects have improved since the introduction of these interventions. Both student and staff feedback highlight this approach as enhancing student engagement and satisfaction, improved student understanding of group roles, reducing number of dysfunctional groups whilst requiring less commitment of academic resources.

Matching cognitive styles to computer-based instruction : an approach for enhanced learning in electrical engineering

An approach aimed at enhancing learning by matching individual students' preferred cognitive styles to computer-based instructional (CBI) material is presented. This approach was used in teaching some components of a third-year unit in an electrical engineering course at the Queensland University of Technology. Cognitive style characteristics of perceiving and processing information were considered. The bimodal nature of cognitive styles (analytic/imager, analytic/verbalizer, wholist/imager and wholist/verbalizer) was examined in order to assess the full ramification of cognitive styles on learning. In a quasi-experimental format, students' cognitive styles were analysed by cognitive style analysis (CSA) software. On the basis of the CSA results the system defaulted students to either matched or mismatched CBI material. The consistently better performance by the matched group suggests potential for further investigations where the limitations cited in this paper are eliminated. Analysing the differences between cognitive styles on individual test tasks also suggests that certain test tasks may better suit certain cognitive styles.

Making PBL teams successful : a study on student diversity in a first year electrical engineering programme

Problem based learning (PBL) is a group learning environment that involves a radical change in the way students learn and the role that academic staff play in facilitating learning. The PBL approach claims to build extended technological and social understandings as it offers a context for development of autonomous learners. It has an emphasis on collective and individual learning motivation and decision-making behaviours.

In this paper, we present the responses of students to the heterogeneous characteristic of PBL teams in a first year electrical engineering degree course at an Australian University. The learning cultures in PBL teams that emerge as a result of the diverse characteristics of teams are also presented in this paper.

A number of PBL teams were observed and interviewed throughout their first year course with their consent. Analysis of the data collected about students’ learning and outcomes in PBL teams informed the ways in which individual students approach their learning, the ways in which they control, regulate and direct their learning individually and as a group and the extent to which they participate, engage and thereby learn in the course.

It is evident that some students have a strong influence on the behaviour of other students in their team. These students also influenced what is learnt as a team, the ways in which they interrelated, worked as a team and problem solved in changing circumstances. Therefore, when designing student teams for PBL academics should not assume that a mono-cultural group or a mixed-ability group of students will work successfully together. We think that the results of this research inform both the design of PBL courses and the facilitation of PBL groups to accomplish successful group learning outcomes.

Electrical Engineering Laboratory

l-r John P. Vajda, James A. Lovell grad students

Electronic Education in the Field of Electrical Engineering Disciplines. Combined Didactic Interactive Program System

At present in the educational process of electrical engineering disciplines electronic learning program, providing control over reproductive educational-cognitive activity (the decision of standard problems) and universal modeling program systems, for instance Electronics Workbench, giving a chance of organizing productive, in particular research activity are basically used. However universal modeling program systems can not provide auto control over educational-cognitive activity because of the absence of the feedback with students. The combined didactic interactive program system, providing the closed directed auto control over both the reproductive and productive heuristic educational-cognitive activity of the student is offered.

Using visualization tool to help engineering students learning dynamics

Dynamics is an essential core engineering subject. It includes high level mathematical and theoretical contents, and basic concepts which are abstract in nature. Hence, Dynamics is considered as one of the hardest subjects in the engineering discipline. To assist our students in learning this subject, we have conducted a Teaching & Learning project to study ways and methods to effectively teach Dynamics based on visualization techniques. The research project adopts the five basic steps of Action Learning Cycle. It is found that visualization technique is a powerful tool for students learning Dynamics and helps to break the barrier of students who perceived Dynamics as a hard subject.