An Effective Integrated Approach For The Teaching Of Power Electronics To Part Time Engineering Students

The task of teaching power electronics to students in a part-time electrical engineering course is difficult and challenging. This paper aims to share the experience gained in the development of an effective approach for teaching the subject. In the beginning of the paper, the difficulties involved are introduced. Then, the problems encountered in teaching the subject in the first two years are described and the reasons for which the solutions developed in that period were ineffective are analyzed. Finally, the events that led to the development, and the details of the effective integrated approach are presented. In this integrated approach, various student learning and studying problems were tackled. First of all, a purpose-built workbook has been developed. This workbook is mainly a simplified version of the student textbook. But, summary of lengthy sessions and comparisons of related power electronic circuits are added throughout the set of notes to help students to focus upon the important areas of Power Electronics. Second, lecture and tutorial time are combined to provide opportunity for the students to work on simple and short questions specially designed to help them to clarify the topics just taught in a lecture class. This is to ensure that the whole class is progressing at the same pace. Third, teaching staff always actively help the students to solve their problems during tutorial. Fourth, computer simulation experiments have been developed to complement lecture materials. The details of the integrated approach will be described fully in the main paper so that adaptation/modification of the ideas developed can be done easily for similar situations.