Design-for-Debug: A Vital Aspect in Education

We often assume that debugging is a skill that comes with common sense. However, we have observed that many students do not have an inherent aptitude for debugging. Hands-on projects teaching the engineering design process can become troublesome for some students who cannot complete their projects and consequently fail their courses. In this paper, we advocate the importance of teaching debugging skills throughout digital design courses, especially during the introductory courses. We present teaching techniques in developing the skills for debugging for both introductory and advanced digital design courses. These techniques include emphasis on incremental design stages, test stimuli and observation techniques, and debugging using critical (divergent and convergent) thinking.