ECE Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes for October 29, 2013
Members AY 2013-14: Tangul Basar, Mohamed Ali Belabbas, Deming Chen, John Dallesasse, Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia, Bruce Hajek (Chair), Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, Erhan Kudeki (Ex-Officio), Rakesh Kumar, Stephen Levinson, Daniel Liberzon, Yi Lu, Steven Lumetta, Jonathan Makela, Sayan Mitra, Michael Oelze, Maxim Raginsky, Elyse Rosenbaum, William Sanders (Ex-Officio), Paris Smaragdis, Venu Veeravalli, Daniel Wasserman
Attendees: Basar, Belabbas, Chen, Dallesasse, Dominguez-Garcia, Hajek, Hanumolu, Kudeki, Levinson, Makela, Oelze, Raginsky, Schmitz, Veeravalli
1. The minutes of the meeting of October 22 were approved.
2. The committee discussed the charge from Bill Sanders to "Imagine new ways of teaching ECE courses in support of the "Wider" Award." The variety and efficacy of flipped classrooms were discussed. Observations include the fact a flipped classroom approach is taken in Physics 211 & 212. Jeff Herman is experimenting in ECE 120 and Andy Singer tried a flipped approach for ECE 310 Spring 2013. It was recommended that Andy and Jeff be asked to join the committee at a future meeting to share their experiences and viewpoints.
3. The CC decided to appoint an ad hoc subcommittee to address the revision of ECE 110 from 4 hours to 3 hours, so that the revised version of ECE 110, together with a possibly modified ECE 210, will still make an excellent two course sequence. The ECE 110 discussion document prepared by ECE 110 course director Chris Schmitz can serve as a starting point. It includes specific comments and specific questions for directions within ECE 110. The committee should seek creative ways to regroup portions of the two course sequence. One goal would be on students learning and using concepts in the two course 110/210 sequence that could be relied upon in follow on courses. The committee will include CC members Mohamed Ali Belabbas, Alejandro Dominquez-Garcia, Jonathan Makela, Chris Schmitz, and Venu Veeravalli (chair), in addition to six other ECE faculty members with experience teaching ECE 210 and/or related undergraduate courses [names to be added pending confirmation of availability] The committee is to report back by the end of November.
The EE and CE curricula and engineering practice could be overviewed in a separate zero-hour course such as ECE 100, modeled along the lines of Engineering 100, or within two or three hours of ECE 110 and 120 dedicated for that purpose, or as an extension of Engineering 100. Such overview is also part of the well-attended advising fair program offered to undergraduates each semester.
4. Barring unforeseen requests, the CC will NOT meet on November 5. Next meeting would be November 12.
5. The meeting was adjourned at 1:50 p.m.
These minutes drafted by B. Hajek, October 29, 2013.