Motivating First-Year Students | Integrated Curricula with MATLAB and Simulink, Part 1

Overview

Learn to effectively teach introduction to programming and engineering classes in the freshman year by:

• teaching new concepts
• motivating and integrating students from different backgrounds
• addressing problems with industrial approaches and tools

Marcin Kopaczka presents the course "MATLAB Meets LEGO Mindstorms" that uses robots to introduce programming techniques to first year electrical engineering students at RWTH Aachen University.

At University Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC), Dr. Mohamed Ben Chouikha introduces freshmen to research and engineering with problem-based learning techniques. Students learn about image processing with a graphical modeling approach using Simulink^® and Raspberry Pi boards in their classes.

We introduce resources for your students to improve their individual learning experience and resources to support you while teaching. One example is Cody Coursework, a class assignment and code auto-grading environment, that helps you organize programming assignments for your class.

Note: Cody Coursework became MATLAB Grader in July 2018.

Presentation links

001: Quote from NSPE

101: Literature references

• Goold, E. "Professional Formation of Engineers: Enhancing First Year Student Experience", in Proceedings of SEFI Annual Conference 2015, 2015.
• Behrens, et al. "MATLAB Meets LEGO Mindstorms - A Freshman Introduction Course into Practical Engineering“, IEEE Transactions on Education, 53(2), pp. 306-317, 2010.
• C. Mohtadi, et al. "Why integrate computational thinking into a 21st century engineering curriculum?", in Proceedings of SEFI Annual Conference 2013, 2013.
• Bedjaoui, N. et al. "Integrating engineering workflow at early stages of higher education the French example," Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2015 IEEE, 2015.
• Fishman, J. “Robots to the rescue,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007.

103: RWTH NXT Toolbox

104: Academia website

105: Tutorials

106: MATLAB Examples

107: Simulink Examples

108: MATLAB Central

109: File Exchange

110: MATLAB Answers

111: Raspberry Pi Support package

112: Documentation

113: MATLAB Courseware

114: Hardware Support

115: Cody Coursework

116: Set up a course in Cody Coursework