Continuous Improvement in Teaching Microprocessor Systems Design: A Review of Efforts in Using Different Tools, Techniques, and Methods to Satisfy Students' Needs

Jie Sheng

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Insights for Teaching ECE Courses
Tagged Division: Electrical and Computer
Page Count: 16
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34332
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34332
Download Count: 631

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Jie Sheng University of Washington, Tacoma

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Jie Sheng received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2002 from the University of Alberta, Canada. Since then, she has been an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; a Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Australia; and an Assistant Professor at DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, USA. Sheng is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Engineering and Technology, University of Washington, Tacoma. Her research interests include signals and systems, embedded systems, robotics, and engineering education.

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Abstract

Microprocessor Systems Design is a core course in our curricula of both Computer Engineering and Systems (CES) program and Electrical Engineering (EE) program. The Bachelor of Science degrees in CES and EE were opened in December 2006, and Autumn 2017, respectively. This 5-credit course contains a 4-hour lecture component and a 2-hour hands-on laboratory component per week. It is offered to seniors in the autumn quarter and requires prerequisite on Computer Architecture which covers subjects including instruction set design and assembly programming.

As a continuation of a 200 level core course - Introduction to Logic Design, and a 300 level core course - Digital Systems Design with FPGA using Verilog, also functioning as a bridge to Senior Project, our 400 level Microprocessor Systems Design course focuses on introducing hardware and software design techniques for microprocessor-based systems. As described in course catalog, it aims to (1) give students experience designing and implementing a system using current technology and components; (2) provide students the opportunity to interface microprocessors to external devices; (3) give students experience using state-of-the-art development systems and procedures.

Back to a decade ago, when first designing this course, several processor families were considered and compared. We finally chose Microchip's 8-bit microcontroller PIC18F4520 as the study topic; correspondingly, the tools included Microchip PICDEM2 Plus board, MPLAB IDE as well as the MPLAB ICD2 evaluation kit. With the advancement of techniques, and to meet students' needs, we redesigned the course and switched to Texas Instrument's Tiva C series Microcontroller TM4C1294NCPDT - an IoT enabled High performance 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F based MCU. Labs and course project were designed based on the Connected LaunchPad EK-TM4C1294XL; students got programming experience with both Keil µVision IDE and Code Composer Studio (CCS) IDE.

To achieve teaching effectiveness, the main method we took is the project-centered pedagogy which has been endorsed at many universities world-wide [1] . Each lab is regarded as a small project. After the concepts and basic principles are delivered and discussed during lectures, students need to find out all the necessary information by reading textbooks and digging into piles of technical documents, and generate the problem solution, which should also satisfy the project requirements.

Taking into account ABET assessment criteria and changes of students group - CES students only in the first several years and a mixed class with both CES and EE students recently, we also adopted the strategy of cooperative learning. In addition to encouraging students to contribute to discussions on weekly small projects/labs, the final course project requires group work. Each group was formed by members with different background, e.g., one from CES program and another from EE program. Individual efforts were assessed based on group work evaluation to ensure fairness and equity. Similar as those indicated by [2], the cooperative learning method has successfully promoted students' learning and decision making; it also greatly enhanced students’ racial tolerance and critical thinking capability.

The contribution of this paper is that we provide a review to share our experience in teaching Microprocessor Systems Design in the past decade. Details to be presented include: (1) how we design our curriculum course sequence to ensure students get both the fundamentals and the hands-on exercise in one quarter; (2) how we help prepare students for their future career by teaching them state-of-the-art tools and techniques; (3) how we continuously improve our teaching methods by considering ABET assessment criteria, students’ course evaluation/feedback, and changes in the students group caused by program’s expansion. The effectiveness of our teaching is supported and verified by students’ evaluations.

[1] Wu, X., Obeng, M. & Wang, J., Project-centered pedagogy and practice in teaching microprocessor and embedded systems design to undergraduate students. Proc. of the IEEE SoutheastCon 2010, March 2010.

[2] Felder, R. M., & Brent, R., Designing and teaching courses to satisfy ABET Engineering criteria. Journal on Engineering Education, Vol. 92, No 1, 2003, pp. 7 – 25.

Citation
Format

Sheng, J. (2020, June), Continuous Improvement in Teaching Microprocessor Systems Design: A Review of Efforts in Using Different Tools, Techniques, and Methods to Satisfy Students' Needs Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34332

TY - CPAPER
AB - Microprocessor Systems Design is a core course in our curricula of both Computer Engineering and Systems (CES) program and Electrical Engineering (EE) program. The Bachelor of Science degrees in CES and EE were opened in December 2006, and Autumn 2017, respectively. This 5-credit course contains a 4-hour lecture component and a 2-hour hands-on laboratory component per week. It is offered to seniors in the autumn quarter and requires prerequisite on Computer Architecture which covers subjects including instruction set design and assembly programming.

As a continuation of a 200 level core course - Introduction to Logic Design, and a 300 level core course - Digital Systems Design with FPGA using Verilog, also functioning as a bridge to Senior Project, our 400 level Microprocessor Systems Design course focuses on introducing hardware and software design techniques for microprocessor-based systems. As described in course catalog, it aims to (1) give students experience designing and implementing a system using current technology and components; (2) provide students the opportunity to interface microprocessors to external devices; (3) give students experience using state-of-the-art development systems and procedures.

Back to a decade ago, when first designing this course, several processor families were considered and compared. We finally chose Microchip&#39;s 8-bit microcontroller PIC18F4520 as the study topic; correspondingly, the tools included Microchip PICDEM2 Plus board, MPLAB IDE as well as the MPLAB ICD2 evaluation kit. With the advancement of techniques, and to meet students&#39; needs, we redesigned the course and switched to Texas Instrument&#39;s Tiva C series Microcontroller TM4C1294NCPDT - an IoT enabled High performance 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F based MCU. Labs and course project were designed based on the Connected LaunchPad EK-TM4C1294XL; students got programming experience with both Keil µVision IDE and Code Composer Studio (CCS) IDE.

To achieve teaching effectiveness, the main method we took is the project-centered pedagogy which has been endorsed at many universities world-wide [1] . Each lab is regarded as a small project. After the concepts and basic principles are delivered and discussed during lectures, students need to find out all the necessary information by reading textbooks and digging into piles of technical documents, and generate the problem solution, which should also satisfy the project requirements.

Taking into account ABET assessment criteria and changes of students group - CES students only in the first several years and a mixed class with both CES and EE students recently, we also adopted the strategy of cooperative learning. In addition to encouraging students to contribute to discussions on weekly small projects/labs, the final course project requires group work. Each group was formed by members with different background, e.g., one from CES program and another from EE program. Individual efforts were assessed based on group work evaluation to ensure fairness and equity. Similar as those indicated by [2], the cooperative learning method has successfully promoted students&#39; learning and decision making; it also greatly enhanced students’ racial tolerance and critical thinking capability.

The contribution of this paper is that we provide a review to share our experience in teaching Microprocessor Systems Design in the past decade. Details to be presented include: (1) how we design our curriculum course sequence to ensure students get both the fundamentals and the hands-on exercise in one quarter; (2) how we help prepare students for their future career by teaching them state-of-the-art tools and techniques; (3) how we continuously improve our teaching methods by considering ABET assessment criteria, students’ course evaluation/feedback, and changes in the students group caused by program’s expansion. The effectiveness of our teaching is supported and verified by students’ evaluations.

[1] Wu, X., Obeng, M. &amp;amp; Wang, J., Project-centered pedagogy and practice in teaching microprocessor and embedded systems design to undergraduate students. Proc. of the IEEE SoutheastCon 2010, March 2010.

[2] Felder, R. M., &amp;amp; Brent, R., Designing and teaching courses to satisfy ABET Engineering criteria. Journal on Engineering Education, Vol. 92, No 1, 2003, pp. 7 – 25.

AU - Jie Sheng
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Continuous Improvement in Teaching Microprocessor Systems Design: A Review of Efforts in Using Different Tools, Techniques, and Methods to Satisfy Students' Needs
UR - https://peer.asee.org/34332
DO - 10.18260/1-2--34332
ER -