Using Mixed Exam Methods to Enhance Students Learning for Electronics Courses

This paper presents several non-traditional exam methods that serve both introductory analog electronics and advanced electronics courses in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department at the University of Evansville (UE). The study is focused on classes from Fall 2019 - Fall 2020. Despite the COVID disruption in 2020, students' outcomes and final course survey indicated that these methods enhanced their understanding, promoted their interest and motivation in transistor topics. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Remote Laboratory Platform for Microcontroller Practices

We present a low-cost Remote Laboratory platform developed to support the practices of the Vehicle Electronics course during the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform, which emerged as an emergency solution, has become a significant teaching resource. Although the platform was designed primarily for microcontroller (or FPGA) based practices, it could be extended to Analogue Electronics practices. From a hardware perspective, low-cost devices such as a Raspberry Pi, a camera or a old PC box have been used, while the software interface has been developed using Node-RED. © 2022 IEEE.

Re-Engineering of Undergraduate Analogue Electronics Laboratories during Covid-19

The coronavirus pandemic that spread throughout the world during 2020 and 2021 caused enormous upheavals in workplaces and educational settings. Most educational establishments were forced to rapidly switch to online methods of course delivery and student assessment, which presented a challenge to programmes with practical laboratories and project-based learning. This paper presents the approaches that were taken to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 on the practical laboratories for two analogue circuit design modules at University College Cork (UCC). The practical learning outcomes for these modules were facilitated by use of ADALM2000 Active Learning Modules combined with small modifications to make the best use of the kits. © 2022 IEEE.

A Hybrid Model for the Undergraduate laboratory Course in Analog Electronics amid the COVID-19 Pandemic Challenges

To ensure the best quality of education in the pandemic situation is a great challenge for any educator. The hands-on experience for students at the Under Graduate Engineering Level in Hardware Circuits Laboratory was of the utmost concern. The situation of COVID-19 made the Educator to rethink, redesign and modify the Laboratory courses. To make students more comfortable in level of understanding, the course with Hands-on Experience in the hardware laboratory was designed and floated for the second-year undergraduate students. In this paper, we the team of educators redesigned the course in a Hybrid Model which includes Blended Learning (BL) as well as offline conduction of the circuits laboratory. The students were provided with the required electronic components kit in prior to the conduction of the laboratory. The paper narrates the conduction of the circuits laboratory by first preparing the video for students and floating on the website. Secondly, the students come prepared with the prior laboratory knowledge as well as with the component kits provided to them. We the team, maintaining the safety precautions of the COVID-19 in view, allow the students to carry out and perform the experiments thoroughly. The authors have attempted to address the following experience of the students in, what is the need to introduce blended learning approach as a pedagogy initiative for academic analysis during a pandemic situation to enhance student's learning experience? The team evaluates each of the student's knowledge by viva-voce and allots the grades. The Learner also asked to show the simulation of the circuits well in advance of the conduction of experiments, which helps in experimenting on devices. Thus, the inventive redesigned approach for teaching, Learning and evaluating process have been successfully applied and great success has been achieved in the level of understanding, as well as on implementation of the laboratory exercises. It is aimed that adaptation period of students in this approach of hybrid model of blended learning is shortened. The objective of the achievement like class participation and involvement was also noticed and course assessment like structured enquiry and open-ended experiments done by students scored satisfactorily high. © 2021 IEEE.