Student empowerment by course structure

Summary form only given. The course structure suggested in this document places greater responsibility for performance in the hands of the students. The course has two exams, final and an encompassing extra credit project in a 16 week semester. No homework for grading or credit is given. Old exams and old extra credit projects are available for students. Three techniques for choices in the course are: (1) of (N) problems in an exam, students may do any (N-1) problems; (2) the exam has one extra credit problem, worth half of one of the first (N) problems; and (3) extra credit project, seeks to unify many course topics is worth 10% of the entire course grade. This structure has been used almost exclusively in a control systems course. Such a course necessarily draws from several disciplines and has techniques that can often seem unrelated. To unify these concepts, and to show relations and dependence between them, the course project was introduced. It is an extra credit element of the course, and a student can still have a high course grade without it. However, the worth and the need for the various techniques introduced in the controls course is amplified by this project. Students have five weeks to complete the project. Interestingly, it is the better students that recognize this and work on the project, rather than the other students who could gain the most from such a project. Students have many choices, but they also have more responsibility and motivation to perform the course tasks