Creating an ECE Curriculum Combining Theory with Experiments and Research

一个项目将计划改造共同的核心课程（目前有九门课程），导致BSEE和BSCPE学位在弗吉尼亚理工大学。大约900名本科生，两个学位课程之间的比例约为50：50，将受到影响。在整个新课程的开发过程中，将处理两个目标。首先，课程将在技术上是坚实的，逻辑上组织，以指导大量的学生通过两个学位轨道，每个都有广泛的专业化。第二，将介绍已知和经过检验的教学方法，以及“学习社区”的概念，这将有助于为入学学生提供更共同的背景，以确保多样化的学生群体享有平等的机会，并鼓励优秀的学习，无论学生的学习风格如何。对这些任务的支持将由卓越的本科教学中心和大学荣誉计划提供。拟议的核心课程的成功开发将通过吸引杰出的妇女和代表性不足的少数民族到欧洲经委会部来加强VT的研究和教育基础设施，它将为进入该部门的所有学生提供机会，通过在他们开始核心课程中更具分析性的课程之前提供共同的背景，并通过强调在整个核心课程中，调整教学方法，以解决多种学习方式。

A project will plan to renovate the common core curriculum (currently nine courses) that leads to the BSEE and BSCpE degrees at Virginia Tech. Approximately 900 undergraduates students, split roughly 50:50 between the two degree programs will be affected. Throughout the development of the new curriculum, two goals will be addressed. First, the curriculum will be technically solid and logically organized to guide a large number of students through both degree tracks, each with a wide range of spe-cializations. Second, known and tested pedagogical methodologies, as well as the concept of "Learning Communities" that will assist in providing a more common background for entering students, will be in-troduced to assure equal opportunities for a diverse student body and to encourage excellence of learning, regardless of the student's learning style. Support for these tasks will be provided by the Center for Excel-lence in Undergraduate Teaching and by the University Honors Program. Successful development of the proposed core curriculum will enhance the VT infrastructure for research and education by attracting out-standing women and under-represented minorities to the ECE Department and it will provide the oppor-tunity for all students entering the Department to improve their academic performance by providing a common background before they begin the more analytical courses in the core curriculum and by empha-sizing pedagogical methodologies that addresses multiple learning styles throughout the core curriculum.