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Improvement of an Electrical Engineering Course Offered to Non-Electrical Engineering Majors

Abstract

ECE3183 Electrical Engineering Systems is a survey course offered by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) to non-majors in all other engineering departments at Mississippi State University (MSU). A challenge in most service courses is how to motivate the students to learn. A primary reason that the students struggle in this class is that they do not understand the link between the knowledge in ECE3183 and their majors. To addressing this situation, a faculty member in the ECE department works closely with faculty in other engineering departments to incorporate major-related applications into lectures by the design of application-oriented examples. In this paper, we report an initial effort made by the ECE and Mechanical Engineering (ME) faculty to improve the teaching and learning effectiveness in ECE3183. The ME department was selected because they provide approximately 40% of the student population to ECE3183. Based on the experience and lessons learned from this initial effort, this concept will be extended to other departments in the near future.

I. Introduction

One key mission of baccalaureate engineering programs is to develop and offer the interdisciplinary coursework that is essential to preparing highly-qualified engineering graduates who will be successful and productive in their future careers.1 As Electrical Engineering (EE) has increasing cross-correlation with other engineering fields, most engineering institutions offer an introductory course in EE to non-electrical engineering (non-EE) students.

At Mississippi State University (MSU), the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is tasked with offering such a “service” course, ECE3183 Electrical Engineering Systems, to non-EE majors in other engineering departments. In this course, basic circuit theories and analysis techniques are introduced, as well as some fundamental theories about electromagnetics and DC machines. This course is required for non-EE majors to fulfill the engineering science credits for their degree.

As in most service courses, how to motivate the students to learn is a challenge. Many students feel the only reason to take ECE3183 is to complete the course requirement for their degree, and possibly to prepare for the FE exam. A primary reason that the students struggle in this class is that they do not understand the link between the course content and their majors. The content of such an EE service course generally is a cut-and-paste combination of the course content offered to the EE students, which does not well correlate with the courses taken by non-EE majors.2 As a result, non-EE majors regularly express dissatisfaction and think it should no longer be required in their program of study. This type of feedback by students has also been expressed by many faculty members teaching a similar course at various universities.2

To addressing this situation, the ECE department works closely with faculty in other engineering departments to incorporate disciplinary application-oriented principles into the lectures. In this

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Du, Q., & Schneider, J. (2006, June), Improvement Of An Electrical Engineering Course Offered To Non Electrical Engineering Majors Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--739