Circuits for a Multidisciplinary Engineering Student Mix

An engineering program with multiple disciplinary degree offerings at a smaller school often requires a core course such as circuits with a multidisciplinary range of students. A previous paper addressed the rationale of combining digital with analog circuits in a one-semester first course for the multidisciplinary audience, an educational innovation that we have successfully implemented for several years now with the support of a custom text. Other techniques that further improve teaching and learning with student diversity include active, cooperative and inductive strategies (Felder & Brent). This paper presents five years of results by introductory multidisciplinary circuits students on the Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric circuits Concept Test (DIRECT by Engelhardt, et al.) as a pre- and post-test diagnostic of learning. This has been administered in conjunction with the Circuit Tutor online tool (Skromme) as an active learning supplement to homework and lectures. The most and least learned analog circuits concepts at this introductory level will be discussed. Besides the Circuit Tutor tool, additional examples will be provided to illustrate methods of enhancing engagement with student diversity by varying the presentation mode, such as 1) graphically highlighted applications at the start of class to introduce new material, 2) demonstrations to clarify and emphasize key issues, 3) concept questions to stimulate student inquiry and diagnose understanding, 4) incentivized homework collaboration, 5) enhanced homework problem context adapted to engineering disciplines in the class and 6) improvised lab strategies. This paper will provide results from the authors experience, include some work in progress, and recommend future work needed to benefit engineering educators who face similar multidisciplinary challenges.