No abstract

No abstract

Undergraduate engineering students regularly participate in laboratory experiences in introductory circuit theory courses. Based on instructor experience, it can be observed that students often struggle to remember how to use test and measurement equipment or important software from week to week, making long term retention of necessary skills inadequate. The facilitators of this study searched for strategies to improve student retention of important skills, and drew inspiration from performance-based assessment strategies used in the healthcare profession. In particular, physical therapy students are often subject to skills checks, where they must demonstrate competency in standard techniques for physical therapy practice. This approach was adapted to an introductory circuit theory lab, in which students were given regular skills checks to test competency with hardware and software standard in circuit theory courses. Data were collected for three years by asking students to complete anonymous Likert scale surveys designed to allow students to self-assess their achievement of the laboratory learning outcomes. The first year was a control group in which performance-based assessment was not used, while year two and three were separate experimental groups which were subject to skills checks. As a result of the addition of skills checks to the laboratory experience, student selfassessment of achievement of laboratory learning outcomes increased dramatically. This result is promising for the inclusion of skills checks in engineering laboratories to improve student competency using hardware and software common to engineering practice.

No abstract

One of the foundational learning outcomes of upper level engineering electronics courses is the analysis and implementation of discrete amplifier design. While it is relatively straight-forward to implement these designs in the lab, the application of amplifiers in practice may be difficult for students to understand.A simple application of discrete amplifier circuits is the analysis and design of guitar effects pedals. Effects pedals, and in particular overdrive, fuzz, and distortion circuits, demonstrate keystone concepts of electronics, including single stage amplifier design, multistage amplifier design, clipping, biasing, and variable parameter control. In addition, the implementation of these amplifiers in a small package size (within a metal enclosure) provides an excellent avenue for exposing students to printed circuit board (PCB) layout and prototyping. One benefit of these circuits is that they can be used with an input device (guitar) and an output device (audio amplifier) and students can physically observe (and hear) the results of their design. One particular benefit of this approach is a greater understanding of frequency response characteristics, as students are able to hear the results.In this work, several lab projects were developed for an upper level engineering electronics course to leverage guitar pedal design for teaching discrete amplifier design and PCB layout. This paper presents these projects, resources for implementing the projects, as well as assessment results from the initial offering of this course. In addition to direct assessment of the amplifier design course objectives, qualitative student survey results are presented. Both the direct assessment and student survey results suggest that this approach was effective in helping students better understand amplifier analysis and design.