A Discovery-Based First Year Electrical and Computer Engineering Course Emphasizing Real-World Projects that Benefit Society

工程-电气（55）本项目为一年级的基于发现的电气和计算机工程课程开发学习材料和教学策略。它的目的是通过实践和团队合作的项目来提高一年级学生的保留率和满意度，这些项目解决现实世界的问题，其解决方案有益于社会。学生们在发现电气和计算机工程问题的重要性并分享创造性解决方案时，与不同教师的广泛合作伙伴进行互动。生物医学应用的信号和图像处理，电力系统的可靠性，以及用于环境监测的无线传感器网络都是该材料目前使用的问题领域的例子。教师专业发展活动和与社区学院的合作正在发展教师专业知识，传播教育创新的组成部分。该计划包括外展活动，将课程转移到社区大学，并为社区大学和高中学生、教师、指导顾问和家长提供实际的示范访问。评估工作由学院的常驻评估专家领导，使用学生调查、焦点小组和访谈来监测学生的信心和满意度；其他调查也被用来评估外展活动和教师发展活动的有效性。更广泛的影响包括传播教学材料和学习策略，特别努力增加代表性不足群体的学生的招募、保留和满意度，以及向社区大学和高中社区推广。

Engineering - Electrical (55)The project is developing learning materials and teaching strategies for a discovery-based, first-year electrical and computer engineering course. It is being designed to increase the retention and satisfaction of first-year students through hands-on, team-based projects that address real-world problems whose solutions benefit society. The students interact with an extensive partnership of diverse faculty members as they discover the importance of electrical and computer engineering problems and share in the excitement of their creative solutions. Signal and image processing for biomedical applications, power system reliability, and wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring are examples of current problem areas used in the material. Faculty professional development activities and collaboration with community colleges are developing faculty expertise and disseminating educational innovations components. The project includes outreach activities to transfer the course to community colleges and to provide hands-on demonstration visits with community college and high school students, teachers, guidance counselors, and parents. Evaluation efforts, which are led by the College's resident evaluation expert, use student surveys, focus groups, and interviews to monitor the students' confidence and satisfaction; other surveys are being used to assess the effectiveness of the outreach and faculty development activities. The broader impacts include dissemination of the instructional material and learning strategies, special efforts to increase the recruitment, retention, and satisfaction of students in underrepresented groups, and outreach to the community college and high school communities.