IMPROVING ENGINEERING EDUCATION AT UTEP: INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION. Berenice Verdin, PhD Ricardo von Borries, PhD Patricia Nava, PhD

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1 IMPROVING ENGINEERING EDUCATION AT UTEP: INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION Berenice Verdin, PhD Ricardo von Borries, PhD Patricia Nava, PhD

2 My Background Completed PhD in Electrical Engineering 2009 Postdoctoral Fellow for Intelligence Community (NGIA) Postdoctoral Fellow for Teaching Excellence and Innovation at the University at Texas at El Paso Awarded to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering by the UTEP Provost s Office Collaborators: Patricia Nava, PhD, ECE-UTEP (PI) Ricardo von Borries, PhD, ECE-UTEP (Co-PI)

3 Teaching/Learning Challenge Stagnant or decreasing student enrollment Underprepared students Disengaged attitudes Instructional methods disconnected from the students real-world perspectives Limited opportunity for active learning Limited opportunity for laboratory activities supported by real-world problems or interactive learning demos Rising textbook costs that present a financial burden for students, especially low-income students.

4 Signal Processing Education Network (SPEN) UTEP has teamed with Rice University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, National Instruments (NI), Texas Instruments (TI), Hewlett-Packard (HP), and The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Signal Processing Society To use online tools to transform education

5 Signal Processing Education Network (SPEN) It seeks to develop materials that allow educators to break away from traditional textbook-lecture-and-homeworkbased education Create a new framework based on an engaged community of educators, students, and industry professionals Continuously collaborate, improve, and explore interactive content

6 SPEN Tools Three technologies are used to improve teaching and learning Connexions: Open educational resource Interactive Simulations: Free and open interactive simulations Hands on approach Question/Answer System: Database of signal processing problems Track student progress

7 Connexions

8 Interactive Simulation

9 Question/Response System

10 Implementation The initial effort focuses on one strategic subdiscipline in electrical engineering, Signal Processing The framework can be applied to engineering education at all levels In Fall 2012 we implemented the SPEN tools in EE2353 Continuous Time Signals and Systems Organized material from Connexions into modules Developed interactive simulations in Mathematica Used the assessment system to track students progress and evaluate them

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13 Question and Answer System

14 Homework Example

15 Feedback

16 Feedback From Students We used a modified version of the SALG instrument to gather the feedback from students Feedback from students demonstrated that they enjoyed and learned the material better by using Openstaxtutor in the course. Responses: What resources in the class helped you learn the best? On-line notes Homework Being able to see the detailed feedback for the homework Openstaxt Tutor

17 Learning Gains The assessment of the learning gains of students in the Fall semester demonstrate an increase compared to the Summer semester where this tool was not used.

18 Instructor Experience The use of this tool facilitates the instructor s work by doing multiple choice grading and exporting the grades to Excel It is easy to follow the overall class performance as the semester progresses The instructor is able to see the timing it took for each student to perform the assignments It is time consuming for the instructor to prepare all the assignments and material for the course.

19 Future Work We are implementing the use of Connexions, interactive simulations and the question/answer system this semester Extend the use of the SPEN tools to other courses such as EE3353 Discrete Time Signals and Systems

20 Acknowledgement Office of the Provost at UTEP Department of Electrical Engineering Miguel Velez-Reyes, ECE Chair Virgilio Gonzalez, ECE Undergraduate Program Director National Science Foundation (NSF) National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) Rice University Duke University Web Tools