An Alternative Teaching Method for Electrical Engineering Courses

The situation for engineering education is changing. Society needs an increasing number of engineers, requiring ever- increasing student enrollment in engineering schools. The variety of skills that engineering students should master is also increasing. This paper describes pedagogical methods that have been adopted as a response to these needs and to the desires of both students and lecturers to achieve better learning results. A redesigned implementation of Active RF Circuits based on interactive teaching methods is described as well as the impact of these changes on student learning. The course included weekly prelecture assignments, concept tests and student seminar presentations, which lead to an ideal learning cycle. Giving the students frequent guiding feedback was found to be essential to improving student learning. The learning results were encouraging; the students were motivated and they were able to improve their communication and problem-solving skills. Most importantly, the students seemed to have achieved better learning results than with traditional lecturing. The course was targeted towards fourth-year M.Sc. engineering students, who were soon to start their final theses. This qualitative case study is classified as action research with evaluative features.