A novel integrated class/web-based curriculum for the course “Introduction to Electrical Engineering for non majors”: progresses made — lessons learned

This paper introduces the progress made in optimizing the curriculum for the interdisciplinary service course Introduction to Electrical Engineering (EE) for non-EE majors at Michigan Technological University¹. The curriculum optimizes the current 3-credit service course by clarifying the relationship between EE and non-EE fields. The paper presents the lessons learned from a pilot study of the course. Evaluation of the pilot study showed that there were problems with the specialized web-content that had a negative impact on the students taking the optimized course. Information from surveys and focus group discussions is being used to revise the curriculum. The revisions are: (a) the re-alignment of the components of the course, and in particular lectures and web content delivery; (b) the development of application-based problems in order to better bridge non-EE and EE concepts; and, (c) revising web-based materials to maintain a clear relationship between EE and non-EE concepts (without going through non-essential theoretical details).