Integrating case-based tutorials into the EECS core curriculum
Speaker: Hal Abelson, Gerry Sussman, Tom Clay ,
Date: June 23 2004
Time: 10:00AM to 11:30AM
Location: Grier Room A (34-401A)
Contact: Hal Ableson, hal@mit.edu
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For the past two years, we have been developing a new pedagogical model for subjects taught in the EECS core curriculum. We incorporated case-based tutorials taught by practicing electrical engineers - most of whom are MIT alumni - into an experimental version of 6.002 in the spring semesters 2003 and 2004.
This work, sponsored by the d'Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in MIT Education, is a pilot designed to inform a major revision of the EECS core that will commence this summer under continuing d'Arbeloff support and support from the Cambridge-MIT Institute.
In this talk, we'll review the goals of our experiment, report on our experiences, share our evaluation findings, and solicit your advice on how we should next proceed.
Our approach has several noteworthy aspects:
Basic material is introduced in conjunction with cases that expose students to more complex engineering problems than in the mainstream curriculum. The cases are studied in small tutorials that require students to assume active and collaborative roles in their study.
The tutorials are led by engineers from local industry. Our intent is to introduce students to how practicing engineers think, and also to demonstrate how to increase the educational resources available to the Institute by drawing upon talent from our alumni body and local industry.
The course includes novel on-line computer exercises and a new software tutoring system that incorporates artificial intelligence techniques (constraint propagation and truth maintenance). This part of our research is being pursued in collaboration with Peter Robinson of the Cambridge University Computing Laboratory.
We have conducted extensive evaluations to assess the feasibility of this approach and the issues to be addressed in attempting to scale it to larger class size. These studies also provide insight more generally into the use of case-based tutorials in engineering education.
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