Retaining electronic engineering students by project- and team-work from the first semester

This paper describes the experience of teaching the basics of engineering: calculus and the basics of physics as part of a project-and team-work initiative in the department of Electronics and Information Technology, at Copenhagen University College of Engineering (CUCE) in Denmark. All the basics courses in the first and second semester have been taught as part of projects and involve teamwork.

Modern engineering students are difficult to motivate in order to learn pure theoretical issues such as solving differential equations. Especially when we talk about undergraduate engineering students, who do not expect to continue their education higher than a Bachelor of Science in Engineering. At the same time, and for the same reason, the fail rate in mathematics is very high during the first two semesters.

This was the reason we decided to change the structure of our education and incorporate the theory with practical projects. This paper describes some of the projects. The projects are the motivating factors to learn mathematics. The examination results show improved learning potential, when using this method of engineering education.

The students' evaluations show a very positive effect on their experience with this “practical” way of learning theory. At the same time, the evaluation results have shown higher pass rates and higher grading.