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AY 2015-2016 Members: Jont Allen, Can Bayram, Mohamed Ali Belabbas, John Dallesasse, Arne Fliflet, Patricia Franke, Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, Kiruba Haran, Yih-Chun Hu, Nam Sung Kim, Erhan Kudeki Kudeki (Ex-Officio), Rakesh Kumar, Stephen Levinson, Yi Lu, Jonathan Makela Makela (Chair), Serge Minin, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan, Maxim Raginsky, William Sanders Sanders (Ex-Officio), Christopher Schmitz, Jose Schutt-Aine, Paris Smaragdis, Lav Varshney, Shobha Vasudevan, Venugopal Veeravalli, Lara Waldrop, Yihong Wu, Hao Zhu
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| Time | Item | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 10min | Welcome and Logistics Approve minutes from April 20, 2015 | Makela |
| 20min | Committee Charge | Sanders |
| <20 min | Discussion | All |
Minutes
- The meeting was called to order at 2:03pm
- Minutes
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- from the April 20, 2015 meeting were approved.
- Makela gave a brief welcome to the committee members. It was pointed out that the committee's wiki site was the primary source for information, both for the current committee and historical information about the committee's activities.
- Sanders addressed the committee and pointed out several topics that he would encourage the committee to study this year.
- This committee is important to the department since it acts as the steward for the undergraduate curriculum. This manifests as both the semesterly review of x98 and new courses as well as overseeing the long-term evolution of the curriculum.
- The previous year saw two major changes impacting the undergraduate curriculum: (1) the introduction of the new CE curriculum (and associated changes in the EE curriculum) and (2) the move to the new ECEB.
- Many current students took the opportunity to transfer into the new CE curriculum (~340 CE students; ~40 EE students).
- In the current year, the CC should look at how to further improve and refine the curriculum. In particular, we should take a broad look at the delivery of core courses and what methods can/should be used to best benefit the students (i.e., trade-offs between large lectures vs. small parallel sections, flipped classes, websites, etc). A task force began to look at this over the summer, especially for ECE 110. The CC should look at this for ECE 120, 220, and 445. The later is expected to see an influx of CE students as this course now is open to them.
- We should also look at how we best present the educational experience we provide to our students to external people. Although the department's next ABET accreditation is not for several years, the department will go through an external review in spring 2016. This external review will include a review of the department's teaching. We can use this to motivate the development of evaluation material that can also serve as mid-cycle ABET evaluations.
- A broad ranging discussion followed:
- Schutt-Aine asked about considering different delivery models (i.e., lecture-recitation). Makela followed on by asking about what sort of constraints the committee should consider when discussing potential delivery options. Sanders responded that we should concentrate on discussing what will serve the students best, although constraints will have to be considered before implementing recommendations. However, they should not be the drivers. Some ECE courses are already being taught outside of ECEB and this can help alleviate spacing constraints.
- Minin asked about understanding the history of how the curriculum evolved into what it is. Makela pointed out that much of this history is contained on the Wiki and Kudeki's server (back to 2005 or so), which is also linked to from the Wiki. Kudeki described that it is a gradual process and a challenging one. Occasionally, there are major shifts (cf., the new CE curriculum). It was suggested that the committee look back at the "requirements" list for what should be included in the core curriculum that was initiated by Doug Jones several years ago.
- Vasudevan suggested that we have a discussion based around data analytics and machine learning from a big data viewpoint. ECE398BD, which partially addressed these topics, is undergoing transition to a permanent course, but there is room for development of an additional ECE course in this arena.
- The meeting was adjourned at 2:54pm.