Digital Design Class Using Project Based Learning Approach

Digital design fundamentals is a freshman/sophomore level course required to all Electrical, Computer, and Mechatronics engineering students. The Electrical and Computer Engineering department enrolls 160-200 students every year in the course. For many years, the DFW rate for this course has ranged from 26-46%. I believe the success rate of this course can be improved through the planned redesign of the course which will in turn improve the retention rate in the engineering discipline. Redesigning the course will focus on three major aspects: 1) include Hardware Description Language programming assignments to re-inforce understating of main topics. 2) Use a tablet to record all lectures and make them available to students after class. 3) Use online assessment tool to assess students’ understanding of main topics before proceeding to the next one.