UCLA MAE Chair Tim Fisher has implemented microcontrollers into his laboratory course to facilitate remote learning.
From the Daily Bruin:
Timothy Fisher, the chair of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department, planned to implement microcontrollers, or small compact circuits, into his laboratory course before classes were held online but had not put his idea into practice yet.
However, the transition to remote learning made this change necessary because students can use microcontrollers at home, unlike the measurement devices usually used in his course, he said.
Fisher, also reduced the number of labs in his class and added a microcontroller-based independent project. Teaching assistants for his class now generate mock lab data based on previous years and students perform analysis in Zoom breakout rooms during lab sessions.
The videos students watch during the required lectures that depict the experiments cannot replace the in-person lab experience, Fisher added.
“Obviously we’re never going to replace the on-campus experience because touching and seeing something in three-dimension is fundamentally different than watching someone else do it on a computer screen,” Fisher said.
Please read the entire article by Inga Hwang here.
Image: Daily Bruin file photo.