Work in progress: theme-based redesign of an electrical and computer engineering curriculum

The goal of this work-in-progress is to develop an innovative ECE curriculum that focuses on ECE fundamentals within the construct of real-world integrated system design, analysis, and problem solving. The curriculum is formulated around the theme of integrated sensing and information processing (ISIP). The foundation of this new curriculum is a hands-on theme-based introductory course. This course, taken in the freshman year, introduces students to the major subdisciplines of ECE in the context of real-world applications. In the laboratory, which is tightly coupled to the lecture, students apply basic concepts of sensing, information transmission, information analysis, storage and networking to design and implement an ISIP system, such as a health or weather monitoring station. In this way, students immediately begin to understand the relationships between the major topic areas of ECE as well as be motivated to explore these topics in further depth. Other components of the redesign include the integration of core and upper-level courses into the ISIP theme, the introduction of new ISIP-related design courses, and the integration of MATLAB throughout the curriculum.