course description and learning objectives
Jan
The following course description for the Electricity and Electronics course (could change):
COURSE DESCRIPTION: TEC 265 Electricity and Electronics.
Course Description: A study of the theory and techniques necessary for electrical and electronic systems and their associated equipment. Students will learn how to identify, calculate, measure, create, and repair basic electrical and electronic systems. These skills will be applied to a selection of practical projects that will challenge the students understanding of the material and problem solving/troubleshooting abilities. Topics may include AC/DC circuits, resistance, power, various components, and use of electrical measuring instruments.
The stated learning objectives (could, and probably should, change).
COURSE OBJECTIVES: As a result of this course, the student should be able to:
1. Demonstrate proper safety precautions related to equipment.
2. Define voltage, resistance, current amperage, direct current, alternating current, and power supply.
3. Identify electrical components and their associated values
4. Interpret and create schematic diagrams of electrical circuits
5. Explain the basic principles and operation of varied electrical/electronic components
6. Implement Ohm's Law to calculate voltage, current, and resistance problems.
7. Create, calculate, and service simple series, parallel, and series-parallel circuits.
8. Identify and explain the concepts of both DC and AC power systems and associated circuits.
9. Calculate values for AC and DC resistive, inductive, and capacitive components.
10. Correctly utilize various measurement tools to identify and measure results of AC and DC laboratory exercises.
PROGRAMMATIC OBJECTIVES. The following are programmatic objectives for the course as it fits into the larger curricula at Berea (trickier to change, but not impossible):
This course will serve both the Computer Science major and the Technology and Applied Design major.
For CS, it is pretty simple, we want students to have sufficient background in circuitry to be able to engage Computer Organization in sufficient depth.
For Technology and Applied Design, I believe they wish to leverage both AC and DC in later courses, but the only TAD course which has the Electricity and Electronics as a prerequisite is a more advanced course called Digital Electronics. In addition, I guess it is worth noting that the Technology program contains an architect who is hoping that basic house wiring will continue to be covered in this course.
I am interested in hearing all of your thoughts on the fit with your ideals for the course...
Jan
Mel Chua
One thing I noticed at first glance is that all of these are fairly low
on Bloom's Taxonomy -- remember, understand, apply (an existing
procedure). Even #7 says "create" but could be easily a "remember"
(build circuit from memory) or "apply" (run this mental subroutine that
adds a component in series or in parallel). And none are metacognitive
(learning about learning, reflection, etc).
This, I think, is the criticism I've heard of most electronics
technology programs from "real engineers" (note the quotes) -- they
teach you how to parrot, not to think or to design. So we may want to
work on learning objectives that go further up the taxonomy (see
http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html for a nice
quick intro to a revised version of Bloom's). For instance:
* analyze: break down a complex circuit into subcomponents, figure out
the function of each subcomponent, and describe how they interconnect to
form the complete behavior of the circuit
(http://faculty.olin.edu/~dkerns/delta2002_final.pdf is a nice example
of a circuit that this works well with).
* evaluate: select, and justify selection of, an appropriate electrical
component and supplier of that component for a project based on
technical specifications, price, available libraries, team skill level, etc.
* create: design an electronic self-portrait that responds to its
environment by taking in sensor input, digitally processing it, and uses
that output to drive something from a microcontroller.
These are just (somewhat contrived, late-at-night) examples. We'll have
to figure out what the actual learning objectives are, and then
ruthlessly cull them -- what's the stuff we want students to deeply
remember 5 years after graduation? Everything else is a nice-to-know.
Otherwise we go on a Content March, which results in coverage in lieu of
understanding. (In pedagogy class, we used concept mapping to help us
figure this out -- after several iterations of drawing out the web of
concepts, you usually notice that a few concepts are more "central" than
the rest; those tend to be your core. But concept mapping is just one
way of doing it.)
Another way of thinking about things is what students should be ready to
do next (which, in this case, is Electronics II, but we don't know what
that looks like either). For instance, one curriculum project I'm
working on for UNICEF right now became much clearer when we started
thinking about the Google Summer of Code program as an end-point -- not
that all students would participate in it after their "graduation" from
the class (in fact, none or very few probably will), but that someone
who successfully completes the class should have the *ability* to
functionally participate in and learn from such an experience as a
follow-up (from both a technical and communications perspective). It
gave us a coherent target to aim at, just like signing up for a marathon
gives you something specific to train for -- and then that training
program can be used by people even if they're not planning to run the
marathon.
--Mel
Jan
Matt Jadud
>> We'll have to figure out what the actual learning objectives are, and
>> then ruthlessly cull them
>> what's the stuff we want students to deeply remember 5 years after
>> graduation?
> Exactly so!
+1 on this whole thread.
I'm starting a new thread for what I'm going to say, so this one can
continue as is. (Or, stop, as is.)
M