Open Access15‐year educational experience on autonomous electronic information devices by flipped classroom and try‐by‐yourself methods
Author(s) -
Mita Yoshio,
Kawahara Yoshihiro
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
iet circuits, devices and systems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.251
H-Index - 49
ISSN - 1751-8598
DOI - 10.1049/iet-cds.2016.0406
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , electronics , task (project management) , computer science , flipped classroom , multimedia , mathematics education , electrical engineering , psychology , engineering , systems engineering , paleontology , biology
Since 2001, the departments of Electrical and Electronics and Information and Communication Electronics Engineering of Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) have jointly given a lecture on autonomous electronic information devices for undergraduate students. According to the on‐line questionnaire, 80% of students in 2010–2012 replied that the lecture was useful for their future career. The task given to students was to design and realise an autonomous electronic information devices (so‐called ‘the IoT‐gadgets’) by themselves, and conduct a live demonstration in front of their colleagues. The device must have an ‘input’, ‘output’, and some ‘information processing’. Being aware of the speed of technology evolution as well as the short hours of the lecture, the professor tried not to give direct answers to students’ questions on how‐to instantly build and program an information device. Instead, the students were told to beware of their ‘methods’. This refers to the deductive thinking introduced by René Descartes, and in the lecture's context how students should behave in order to realise the device. In this study, the backgrounds of various associated topics are discussed, such as the UTokyo's educational system, the world's rapid prototyping movement, open hardware, course design, students’ reactions, and future directions.