A Spiral Step-by-Step Educational Method for Cultivating Competent Embedded System Engineers to Meet Industry Demands

Embedded system technologies are undergoing dramatic change. Competent embedded system engineers are becoming a scarce resource in the industry. Given this, universities should revise their specialist education to meet industry demands. In this paper, a spirally tight-coupled step-by-step educational method, based on an analysis of industry requirements, is proposed. The learning process consists of multiple learning circles piled up in a spiral. Each learning circle consists of three steps: lecture, demo, and hands-on practice, which are tight-coupled to enable students to readily revisit essential knowledge. The circle currently being studied is directly based on the previous circle, so as to maintain a smooth learning curve. Since students can quickly see the result of their work, their motivation to learn remains high. Since a learning circle takes only a short period to complete, the core knowledge and skills can be repeated in different forms across the three types of educational step so that students can master them. The students´ achievement and performance using the proposed method show that it can enable them to master the requisite knowledge and effectively transform this into skills.