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新颖的方法优化了一门基本的跨学科课程。它将创建一个原型课程，可供电气工程系使用，这些系负责为非EE专业的学生提供电气工程入门。新课程将：(1)对学生具有吸引力、激励性和相关性；(2)在课程组合中提供最广泛和最深入的教育主题覆盖范围和深度；(3)对大学和学生来说，实施成本低廉和成本效益高。尽管这不是该项目的主要关注点，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员，他们希望检查他们的课程的相关性。该项目的更广泛影响包括开发和传播一套应该对全国所有工程教育项目有用的课程包和模式。拥有与其特定学科相关的EE背景，学生将能够与来自其他学科的工程师更好地合作。这个项目打开了一扇门，改变了非EE工程专业教授工程学的方式。这一过程和由此产生的模型可以作为催化剂，促使工程教育者找到向多学科非EE工程专业学生教授EE概念的最佳方法。该项目的成果将是全面开发和设计一套新颖而创新的EE课程包，其中包括课程教科书、实验室课程和适用于大多数非EE工程领域的课程网络教学模块。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.