This work-in-progress (WIP), innovative-practice paper describes the piloting of laboratory experiments that emulate real-world engineering design practices during the instruction of a sophomore-level introductory circuits course. Results reflect positively on design self-efficacy and suggest promise for future work. Introductory electronic circuits courses have historically been taught within an analytical framework. Recent design-based pedagogical changes, i.e., the incorporation of makerspaces, simulations, and design-oriented assignments, to Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) curricula have shown the benefits of multi-modal approaches to instruction. The research suggests that student motivation, satisfaction, and performance are enhanced through the application of design-based learning challenges. The authors believe that active and experiential learning opportunities can be coupled with computational tools and traditional instruction to provide a range of frameworks that serve different types of learners. As a part of this study, students spent three hours per week in a makerspace where they completed twelve re-designed laboratory assignments with integrated simulation exercises and design challenges. Students who completed the course before and after implementing these changes were surveyed to gauge the influence that the lab changes have on their self-efficacy with course material and circuit design. Student responses to Likert-scale questions, tested with the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Sums test, show significant improvements in student confidence with simulation and computational tools and with utilizing computer translational and scalable matrix-solving techniques for linear circuits. In addition, while students expressed the difficulty of working on open-ended, independent learning challenges, their reflection responses also indicated the value of the experience. This pilot study serves as a basis for further investigation into how different modalities may complement one another and lead to independent concept application and design self-efficacy in young engineers.

In this Research-to-Practice full paper, we study the perspectives of students on different pedagogical practices in signal processing classes during the pandemic. With the COVID-19 outbreak, universities transitioned to remote operation. While they were not trained for online teaching, instructors had different preferences and motivations of their teaching pedagogy and how to conduct their remote classes. However, only few instructors designed their approach based on their student perspectives. In this study, we survey the students, in signal processing classes, to investigate the different factors that affected their learning under different pedagogical approaches as well as their perspective on active learning and class flipping. Active learning helps maintaining the student motivation while studying from home. Traditional lecturing is the closest to what students are used to. On the other hand, flipped classroom, albeit requiring finishing pre-class activities, enables the students to come prepared and be able to engage more in class activities.

This Research to Practice Full Paper presents a detailed study on the perspectives of students on different online lecture delivery method for programming classes, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. During the period of spring, summer, and fall 2020, a total of 770 students across six different courses, and spanning the freshman, sophomore, and junior years, were surveyed to express their opinions in three different online lecture delivery methods, in the school hosting this study. The survey was designed to capture the main problems and obstacles the student had faced in an online learning environment. The authors analyze the obtained results and recommend best practices to successfully lead programming classes in an online learning environment.

Electronics courses were commonly completed with hardware and software labs to complement teaching electronics theory and enrich the learning experience for students. The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the practical implementation of electronic circuits and the quality of electronics teaching. In this survey-based study, instructors of electronics book courses and labs, during the first year of the pandemic, discuss how to alleviate the limitations of the pandemic on electronics teaching. This study is a work-in-progress.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impeded the education process in many ways. It has been reported that both instructors and students have dreaded the transformation to online platforms and have deemed the emergency classes ineffectual. However, by the end of the first year of the pandemic, when in-person attendance was permitted through hybrid classrooms, poor in-person classroom attendances were commonly reported. In this study, the instructors and students are surveyed to reveal the challenges of the transformation to online classes, and to induce the causes behind the poor in-person attendance of classes during the pandemic. This study is a work in progress.