Development and Evaluation of Design-Oriented Electrical Engineering Lower Division Laboratory Materials

西弗吉尼亚大学、威斯康星大学普拉特维尔分校和科罗拉多矿业学院的工程下级实验室材料系正在应对工程教育的批评，即它在设计方面薄弱，在培养出擅长分析的工程师的同时，缺乏设计、综合和评估方面的技能。许多教育工作者建议对课程和教学方法进行改革，旨在将这些技能重新融入学习经验。虽然许多创新有其优点，并对开发人员起到了很好的作用，但其他地方的教育工作者往往难以将它们融入到他们特定的环境中。该学院正在开发面向电气工程设计的较低级别的实验材料，并计划在三个截然不同的课程环境中评估它们的有效性。正在从最广泛成功的草稿材料中编写一本关于实验室设计练习的学生手册和附带的讲师手册，其中详细描述了如何开展以设计为导向的实验室。这些材料将实验室从验证成熟理论的相对被动的智力体验转变为创造功能设备、电路和系统的积极智力体验。学生材料得到了教师广泛辅助的大力支持，所有材料都是为不同的课程结构而设计和评估的，以使它们广泛适用。

Engineering Lower Division Laboratory MaterialsFaculty at West Virginia University, University of Wisconsin - Platteville, and Colorado School of Mines are addressing the criticism of engineering education that it is weak in design, and while producing engineers who excel at analysis, lack skills in design, synthesis and evaluation. Many educators propose changes in curricula and instructional methods aimed to integrate these skills back into the learning experience. While many innovations have merit and work well for their developers, educators elsewhere often experience difficulty incorporating them into their particular environment. The faculty are developing lower-division electrical engineering design oriented laboratory materials and plan to evaluate their effectiveness in three very different curricular environments. A student booklet of laboratory design exercises and an accompanying instructor's manual describing in detail how to conduct a design-oriented laboratory is being developed from the most broadly successful draft materials. The materials transform the laboratory from the relatively passive intellectual experience of verifying well established theories to an active intellectual experience creating functional devices, circuits, and systems. The student materials are heavily supported by extensive aids for the instructor, and all materials are designed for and evaluated within disparate curricular structures to make them broadly useful.