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Assessment and Analysis of Learning via a New Approach! Teaching Electrical Circuits Course by Mastering Engineering

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Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Circuits and Systems Education 1

Tagged Division

Electrical and Computer

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

12

Page Numbers

26.256.1 - 26.256.12

DOI

10.18260/p.23595

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/23595

Download Count

450

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Paper Authors

biography

Bala Maheswaran Northeastern University

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Bala Maheswaran, PhD
Northeastern University
367 Snell Engineering Center
Boston, MA 02115

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Abstract

Assessment and Analysis of learning via a new Approach! Teaching Electrical Circuits course by Mastering EngineeringAbstractTeaching Electrical Engineering Circuits to non-Electrical Engineering majors such asMechanical Engineering students at the undergraduate level is always a challenging andmotivating adventure. The basic circuit concepts are long-standing, for example, Ohm’s law iscenturies old but still students struggle to solve problems involving the application of Ohm’s lawwhen incorporating with other ideas. For example, in the node voltage analysis, estimatingcurrents entering and leaving a node using Ohm’s law is sometimes problematic to students.Exploring new techniques to teach electrical circuits is a continuous journey. For our part, wehave introduced Mastering Engineering online problem solving and answering approach forelectrical circuit with the intent to improve students’ learning skills and mastering circuitconcepts.This online assignments have video based coaching problems, tutorials with hints to guidestudents to learn the electrical circuit concepts and regular text book end of chapter homeworkproblems. As part of the course requirement, students are assigned to do the conceptual problemsto self-learn the concepts and more advanced problems to master the concepts. This mandatoryrequisite enables them to learn the chapter-materials in more depth. The aim of this study was todetermine whether this tool indeed helps students to learn the course materials to the satisfactionof the student and the instructor.This report will present information about the Mastering Engineering approach used in oursections and the weekly workload assigned to students. This time consuming, pioneering workon the study of average time spend by students on each assignment, individual problem, and thetotal time spent by students to do the assignments will be presented. In addition to this work, atthe end of the semester, a survey was done to see to what extent mastering Engineering helpedour students to master the course materials. About hundred students, from two different sectionsparticipated in the survey. The data was analyzed using a spreadsheet and the outcome will bereported in this paper. This particular study was done for Electrical circuit course taught for thenon-electrical engineering students. The course covers mainly circuit analysis using various lawsand theorems, and applications of electrical engineering, such as AC circuits and electric power,magnetic circuits, transformers, and rotating machines.

Maheswaran, B. (2015, June), Assessment and Analysis of Learning via a New Approach! Teaching Electrical Circuits Course by Mastering Engineering Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23595

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