-We have conducted surveys at the beginning and the end of semesters in an Engineering
-This paper describes examples of a new range of activities intended to enhance the exposure of senior high-school students to engineering, technology, applied science and science. The activities are termed Teachers-in-Service Program (TISP), and have been proposed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Shortly after IEEE Canada brought TISP to this country, IEEE Winnipeg Section brought it to Manitoba. Our TISP activities to date have been very extensive and comprehensive [1].The mission of TISP is to foster interest in engineering, science and mathematics among students from grades 7 through 12 by providing teachers with tools and training (e.g., [2]) that can be used to give students interesting experience with science and engineering topics in the classroom. TISP provides a forum for IEEE volunteers to demonstrate the application of engineering, science and mathematics concepts by sharing their real-world experiences with local preuniversity educators. IEEE offers training workshops for its volunteers on how to provide the in-service program to local teachers. In Manitoba, we have expanded the TISP activities to include not only teachers, but also parents and students themselves. Our TISP activities are segmented into three classes: Tier1 that dedicated to students mostly (e.g., focused presentations, demonstrations and tours that reached over 1350 students in the previous year), Tier2 involving teachers mostly (e.g., workshops [3]), and Tier3 engaging students, teachers and parents (e.g., Space Camp [4], Near-Space Experiments, and communications with satellites through the University of Manitoba ground station [5]).
This paper reports on what we found when we surveyed second-year students in a Technical Communication class, once at the beginning of the semester and again at the end, and then when we surveyed two senior capstone design classes, one in Mechanical Engineering, one in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and one in Civil Engineering. In all these iterations, we asked students to indicate their levels of confidence and proficiency in their writing and speaking skills (communication skills), teamwork and personal skills development (lifelong learning). When we surveyed our second-year students, they indicated that they were only moderately confident in their communication skills (the aggregate was mostly 3 or slightly more on a scale of 5). At the end of the semester, when we asked them what they believed would be the competency level expected of them in these areas when they graduated, that number jumped to 4.5 on average. These students, however, were also decidedly more confident in their teamwork and lifelong learning skills, where the average hovered close to 3.5. On average, the capstone students were likewise confident in these areas, even slightly more so (3.87). Given the rapidity with which technical information grows and the complexity of the world around us, engineering students must be more prepared than ever to develop the drive to keep learning so that, as practicing professionals, they are equipped to maintain their competence and contribute to the advancement of knowledge.
The evolution of a curriculum involves changes at many different levels such as daily changes to reflect questions or areas of interest of a particular class, improvements to an established course based on observations from the professor, or more significant changes to streams of courses at a departmental level, or adaptation to suggested accreditation guidelines such the recent new Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes and outcomes. Most educational institutions have means of collecting data and assessing individual courses or streams of courses based on student performance, course evaluations, and professor assessments. However, since more can be done to gauge the collective effect of changes before students get to their final year capstone project or go into industry, a student-run curriculum forum has been established.This paper presents some of the lessons learned from the bi-annual student-run curriculum forums in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Manitoba. Based on the experience acquired so far, this paper outlines the organization of the curriculum forums, suggestions on guided discussions, ways to present feedback, and means of communicating to students how their feedback is being used to improve the curriculum.
The foundation behind asynchronous serial data communications in microprocessor-based systems is generally taught through the theoretical timing diagrams and implementation of a protocol in a laboratory setting. Although students can extract the necessary information from the timing diagram to program a selected microprocessor, they face a number of challenges during the implementation because of the lack of tools to debug and observe the output of the microprocessor incrementally. More specifically, students cannot apply some of the acquired debugging skills like the use of breakpoints or oscilloscopes because (i) programming breakpoints can confirm the logic state of a signal and sequence of events, but not the timing of events, (ii) oscilloscopes can only capture portions of timing signals, and (iii) the signals captured are not digitized, thus displaying uncertainty in noisy environments. Once the programming task is completed, the protocol is verified by transmitting a known message, with the expectation that it will be received at the other end of the serial transmission link -an approach (all-or-nothing) that can be very frustrating during a lab session. This paper presents the use of a logic/protocol analyzer to enhance learning of asynchronous serial data communications by capturing and visualizing the real timing diagrams from a laboratory unit. The use of the Saleae Logic Analyzer provides students with a visual representation of the waveforms at every stage of their design and establishes a very clear link between the timing diagrams discussed in a class and their actual implementations in the lab.
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