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Observations and Reflections on Teaching Electrical and Computer Engineering Courses

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Computers Supported Education (CSEDU 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 865))

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Abstract

In this article, we make a number of observations and reflections based on our experience from many years of teaching courses in electrical and computer engineering bachelor programmes. We present important aspects of attendance, lectures, group work, and compulsory coursework, and how these can be addressed to improve student learning. Moreover, we discuss how to facilitate active learning activities, focussing on simple in-classroom activities and larger problem-based activities such as assignments, projects, and laboratory work, and highlight solving real-world problems by means of practical application of relevant theory as key to achieving intended learning outcomes. Our observations and reflections are then put into a theoretical context, including students’ approaches of learning, constructive alignment, active learning, and problem-based versus problem-solving learning. Next, we present and discuss the results from two recent student evaluation surveys, one for senior (final-year) students and one for junior (first- and second-year) students, and draw some conclusions. Finally, we add some remarks regarding our findings and point to future work.

O. L. Osen—This article is an extended and revised version of a paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU ’17) in Porto, Portugal, April 2017 [1].

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A group effort in a rope-pulling task is inferior to the sum of individual performances; the discrepancy between potential and actual effort increases with size of group.

  2. 2.

    http://www.blackboard.com.

  3. 3.

    AAUC was a small university college before merging with NTNU to become Norway’s biggest university.

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Acknowledgements

The Software and Intelligent Control (SoftICE) Laboratory is grateful for the financial support given by the Study Committee at NTNU in Ålesund through the educational research project Research-Based and Innovation-Driven Learning (FILA), grant no. 70440500.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software and Intelligent Control Engineering Laboratory, Department of ICT and Natural Sciences, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, NTNU—Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Postboks 1517, 6025, Ålesund, Norway

    Ottar L. Osen & Robin T. Bye

Authors
  1. Ottar L. Osen
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  2. Robin T. Bye
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Correspondence to Ottar L. Osen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Paula Escudeiro

  2. University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy

    Gennaro Costagliola

  3. University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

    Susan Zvacek

  4. School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, United Kingdom

    James Uhomoibhi

  5. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Bruce M. McLaren

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Osen, O.L., Bye, R.T. (2018). Observations and Reflections on Teaching Electrical and Computer Engineering Courses. In: Escudeiro, P., Costagliola, G., Zvacek, S., Uhomoibhi, J., McLaren, B. (eds) Computers Supported Education. CSEDU 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 865. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94640-5_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94640-5_18

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