Step-Based Tutoring Approach for a Key Foundational Course in Electrical Engineering
Linear circuit analysis is a central course not only for electrical engineers but for many other engineering majors as well, where it is frequently required for graduation. Promoting and supporting student success is therefore crucial. Here, we describe a national award-winning* software project to develop, disseminate, and rigorously evaluate a freely available step-based tutoring system called Circuit Tutor for linear circuit analysis courses (www.circuittutor.com). To date, the system has been used by over 14,500 students at 18 different colleges & universities by 83 distinct instructors teaching 394 class sections and has shown learning gains up to 1.21σ in comparison to paper or commercial homework systems in nine rigorous randomized, controlled trials. It accepts and provides immediate feedback on every major step of a student’s work, such as re-drawing & simplifying circuit diagrams on the screen, sketching waveforms, drawing plots of frequency response, entering equations with a template-based interface, etc., all with immediate feedback to minimize frustration. It randomly generates an unlimited supply of topologically unique problems and fully worked examples for every student and has been shown to strongly promote academic integrity. A total of 30 different tutorial “games” is included in the system covering all major topics in this area. It provides carefully graded levels of difficulty and is supported by interactive, multiple-choice introductory tutorials (equivalent to a free textbook) on every topic and over 100 YouTube videos illustrating the interfaces and how to solve all problem types. It creates PDF transcripts of student work for use in studying. The system has been used extensively at community colleges and seven minority-serving institutions and for online education. It has undergone rigorous independent evaluation by the College Research and Evaluation Services Team (CREST) at ASU, showing very positive outcomes. This work has also contributed numerous new advances in the foundations of circuit analysis, such as a strongly improved definition of series connections of circuit elements, extension of mesh analysis to nonplanar circuits and the use of a reference mesh to ensure its duality with nodal analysis, and new methods of circuit simplification including concepts of hinged, voltage- and current-splittable circuits, which will be discussed. A live demonstration of the system will be provided.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grants No. 1044497, 1323773, and 1821628.
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- Goldwater Center for Science and Engineering (GWC) 487
- 650 E Tyler Mall
- Tempe, Arizona
- United States 85281
- Building: Goldwater Center for Science and Engineering
- Room Number: 487
Speakers
Brian
Biography:
Dr. Brian J. Skromme is a Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University and served for seven years as the Assistant Dean of the Fulton Schools of Engineering for Undergraduate Education. He has been the recipient of several teaching awards from Eta Kappa Nu, Golden Key Honor Society, and top 5% engineering instructors at ASU. *He was awarded the national Technology Integration Award from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association in 2023 for Circuit Tutor. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. degree with high honors in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was a Member of Technical Staff at Bellcore for five years and has over 140 refereed publications in engineering education and compound semiconductor research.
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