Teaching "Introduction to electrical and computer engineering" in context

In this paper we present an approach to teaching an introductory course in electrical and computer engineering to freshmen engineering students. The primary distinguishing characteristics of our approach include: providing information in an experiential context or "teaching-in-context"; focusing on "black-box"-based hierarchical decomposition as an approach to understanding complex systems; and using piecewise linear models for nonlinear elements as a way to develop intuition and understanding about the workings of circuits. The experiential context is provided by having students carry out a series of laboratory exercises involving an exciting real-world electronic system. To date, we have developed laboratory exercises around a programmable robot and a Global Positioning System receiver. The greatest challenges in teaching an intellectually substantive course to entering freshmen are their lack, on average, of the mathematics and physics background that is taken for granted in most electrical and computer engineering courses. In this paper we demonstrate that by appropriate choice of material and presentation methods this challenge can be overcome.