PERKS: Power Electronics Refined learning via affordable Kit and Software tutor

电力电子技术是智能电网的一项使能技术。然而，学生经常在电力电子课程中挣扎，因为它需要掌握和同时应用几门早期课程的概念。为了应对这一教育挑战，华盛顿州立大学（WSU）的这个项目的目标包括：（i）设计一个软件导师，帮助学生翻译视觉信息（电路图）到书面信息（等式）和分析电力电子转换器电路和（ii）用于手的一体化低成本原型电路套件。在实验中，电力电子转换器可以通过笔记本电脑的USB端口运行，而不需要额外的设备。这些板促进了一种随时随地与实验室共存的模式。 这项工作使电气工程专业的学生更有就业能力，使他们在一个领域，许多毕业生的斗争。通过与广泛的商业分销网络合作，该项目开发的设计和原型产品有可能接触到世界各地大学的学生。四所大学（华盛顿州立大学，格鲁吉亚理工学院，爱达荷州大学和马尼托巴大学）将实施和利用开发的课程材料在他们的电力电子课程，每年的学生总数预计为150人。该项目的成果不仅对电力电子教育界感兴趣，而且还为其他多学科课程开发类似工具铺平了道路。开发的材料的可访问的基于网络的性质可以影响广泛的人群。该项目的产品支持视觉学习风格，许多工程专业学生的首选学习风格，从而增加他们的理解，并最终，他们的保留。在这个项目中开发的软件工具使用一个互动的完善的教学方法（脚手架），以提高学生的学习和解决问题的技能。支架为学生提供了一个模板和动态反馈，以帮助他们在学习的早期阶段。因此，学生的自信心将得到提高，这有望改善学生在电力工程专业的职业选择。这个项目将是变革性的，因为它开发了一种新颖的方法，将脚手架，视觉学习和形成性反馈相结合，将电力电子教育转变为一种更具吸引力的体验。外部评估人员将评估所开发的材料在克服概念困难和改善学生对电力电子的态度方面的有效性。将采用混合方法，强调定性理解，辅以定量数据，包括受试者内实验设计。除了收集背景信息（例如，性别）和基线措施（例如，先前的知识和动力和态度），学生将被给予两组具有相似难度水平的问题，并被要求使用和不使用软件导师提供的脚手架来解决它们。学生解决问题的方法将被记录和定量分析，例如完成时间，子电路的正确性，方程的正确性和最终解决方案的正确性。将对学生的技术知识进行评估前和评估后的测试，并分析学生对家庭作业，期中考试和期末考试的反应。

Power electronics is an enabling technology for the smart power grid. However, students often struggle in power electronics courses because it requires mastery and simultaneous application of concepts from several earlier courses. To address this educational challenge, the objectives of this project at Washington State University (WSU) include designing (i) a software tutor to help students translate visual information (circuit diagrams) to written information (equations) and analyze a power electronic converter circuit and (ii) an all-in-one low cost prototype circuit kit for hands-on experimentation with power electronic converters that run off the USB port of a laptop without needing extra equipment. These boards promote an anywhere, anytime, living-with-the-laboratory paradigm. This work makes electrical engineering students more employable by making them competent in an area where many graduates struggle. The designs and prototype products developed with this project have the potential to reach students in universities worldwide through collaboration with an extensive commercial distribution network. Four universities (WSU, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Idaho, and University of Manitoba) will implement and utilize the developed curricular material in their power electronic courses, with a total expected enrollment of 150 students per year. The outcomes of this project are not only of interest to the power electronics education community, but they also pave the road for developing similar tools for other multidisciplinary courses. The accessible web-based nature of the developed material can affect a broad population.The products of this project support a visual learning style, the preferred learning style of many engineering students, thereby increasing their understanding and ultimately, their retention. The software tool developed in this project uses an interactive well-established pedagogical approach (scaffolding) to improve student learning and problem solving skills. Scaffolding provides students with a template and dynamic feedback to assist them in their early stages of learning. As a result, student self-confidence will improve, which is expected to improve students' choice of careers in power engineering. This project will be transformative because it develops a novel approach that mixes scaffolding, visual learning, and formative feedback to transform power electronics education into a significantly more engaging experience. An external evaluator will gauge the effectiveness of the developed material in overcoming conceptual difficulties and improving students' attitudes toward power electronics. A mixed-methods approach that emphasizes qualitative understandings supplemented by quantitative data will be used, including a within-subjects experimental design. In addition to the collection of background information (e.g., gender) and baseline measures (e.g., prior knowledge and motivation and attitude toward power electronics), the students will be given two sets of problems with similar difficulty levels and asked to solve them with and without the scaffold provided by the software tutor. Students' approaches to problem solving will be recorded and analyzed quantitatively, e.g. completion time, correctness of subcircuits, correctness of equations, and correctness of the final solution. Pre- and post-assessment tests of the students' technical knowledge will be administered and student responses on homework assignments, mid-term tests, and final exams will also be analyzed.