Lab-in-a-Box: Development of Materials to Support Independent Experimentation on Concepts from Circuits and Electronics

工程-电气（55）该项目建立在以前的NSF资助的工作，开发了一个廉价的实验室工具包（实验室在一个盒子），以解决在电气工程通常以讲座为基础的开始课程的具体例子的需要。 该方法提供了一套“动手”练习，学生在其中设计，构建和测试各种直流和交流。使用廉价的电子工具包、数字万用表和教室实验室环境之外的软件示波器来测量电路。 目前的项目是响应调查人员的观察，在使用这种方法，即使是最好的学生往往是不确定自己的能力，适当地进行实验工作。因此，该项目的主要目标是灌输自信心，提高学生的自立能力，在他们的工程生涯中，他们第一次用物理元件而不是符号部件构建电路，并通过直接测量而不是计算来确定电路中的电压降和电流。为了实现这一目标，研究人员正在开发多媒体学习材料，支持实验室的教学目标，并可以随时访问的学生，因为他们独立工作。此外，他们正在将这种方法扩展到四年制大学的电子课程中，并将其纳入附近社区大学的类似课程中。 评估工作正在使用学生和教师调查，特殊的性能测试，和焦点小组，以监测项目的进展情况与国家认可的外部专家的指导。 教学材料和成果正通过期刊出版物和会议介绍以及通过与一家主要出版商的安排传播。 更广泛的影响包括材料的传播和与社区学院的密切联系。

Engineering - Electrical (55)The project builds on prior NSF-funded work that developed an inexpensive laboratory kit (Lab-in-a-Box) to address the need for concrete examples in the normally lecture-based beginning course in electrical engineering. The approach provides a set of "hands-on" exercises in which students design, build, and test various d.c. and a.c. circuits using an inexpensive electronics kit, digital multi-meter, and a software oscilloscope outside of the classroom-laboratory setting. The current project is responding to the investigators' observation that, in using this approach, even the best students are often uncertain of their abilities to properly perform experimental work. Thus the project's primary goal is to instill self-confidence and improve self-reliance in the students when, for the first time in their engineering careers, they construct a circuit with physical components rather than symbolic parts and determine voltage drops and currents in the circuit by direct measurement rather than by calculations. To accomplish this, the investigators are developing multimedia learning materials that support the pedagogical objectives of the Lab-in-a-Box and can be readily accessed by the students as they work independently. In addition, they are expanding the approach into the electronics course at the four-year institution and incorporating it into simialr courses at a near-by community college. Evaluation efforts are using student and faculty surveys, special performance tests, and focus groups to monitor the project's progress with guidance from a nationally recognized external expert. Instructional materials and results are being disseminated through journal publications and conference presentations and through arrangements with a major publisher. The broader impacts include the dissemination of the material and the strong connection with a community college.