Optimizing the Interdisciplinary Course: Introduction to Electrical Engineering (EE) for Non-EE Majors

这个项目的智力价值在于它以一种新颖的方法来优化一门重要的跨学科课程。它将为电气工程部门创建一个原型课程，这些部门负责为非电气专业的学生提供电气工程入门课程。新课程将：(1)对学生具有吸引力、激励性和相关性；(2)在课程包中提供涵盖EE主题的范围和深度的最佳水平；(3)对大学和学生来说，实施成本低廉，成本有效。而且，尽管这不是该项目的主要焦点，但所使用的策略、开发新课程的方法和测试方法可能会帮助其他领域的专业人士检查他们的课程作业的相关性。该项目的更广泛影响包括开发和传播课程包和模式，这些课程包和模式应该对全国所有工程教育项目都有用。有了与他们特定学科相关的电子工程背景，学生将能够与其他学科的工程师更好地合作。这个项目打开了一扇门，改变了工程学对非电气工程专业学生的教学方式。这个过程和最终的模型可以作为一种催化剂，促使工程教育工作者找到向多学科的非工程学生教授电子电气概念的最佳方法。该项目的结果将是完整开发和设计一套新颖创新的电气工程课程包，包括课程教材、实验课程和大多数非电气工程领域的基于网络的课程教学模块。基础工程知识和新兴技术主题都将纳入课程。

The intellectual merit of this project is its novel approach to optimize an essential interdisciplinary course. It will create a prototype curriculum available to electrical engineering departments that are charged with providing an introduction to electrical engineering for non-EE majors. The new curriculum will: (1) be attractive, motivational, and relevant to students; (2) provide the optimal level of both range and depth of coverage of EE topics in a curriculum package, and (3) be inexpensive to implement and cost effective for both universities and students. And, although this is not a primary focus of the project, the strategies used, the methodology of developing the new curriculum, and the testing methods may help professionals in other fields who want to examine the relevancy of their coursework.The broader impacts of this project include development and dissemination of a curriculum package and model that should be useful to all engineering education programs nationally. With an EE background relevant to their particular disciplines, students will be able to work more cooperatively with engineers from other disciplines. This project opens the door to change the way engineering is taught to non-EE engineering majors. The process and the resulting model can serve as a catalyst that prompts engineering educators to find the best ways to teach EE concepts to multidiscipline non-EE engineering students.The outcome of this project will be the full development and design of a novel and innovative EE curriculum package that includes a course textbook, the laboratory coursework, and the course web-based teaching modules for most non-EE engineering fields. Both fundamental engineering knowledge and topics on emerging technologies will be incorporated into the curriculum.