Effectiveness of teaching methodologies for engineering lecture subjects : a comparative analysis

Abstract

It is the utmost responsibility of college professors to make students understand engineering concepts and to go beyond the knowledge level to higher levels of thinking. This is exemplified by helping them apply, analyze, and synthesize the lessons they had undergone to create new knowledge, and solve new problems. Helping students learn and grasp engineering subjects are the main challenge of engineering college professors. They need to recognize the challenge to go beyond knowledge about effective teaching. It is a must for them to apply the strategies for effective teaching methodologies. This is a continuous process of analyzing what works and taking corrective action to modify or synthesize the teaching approach to help students learn in a way that ultimately works for them. Identifying effective teaching strategies, therefore, is a challenge as the effectiveness of our current teaching style and the innovative ways we have to improve our teaching to match students' learning styles are both being assessed (Teaching Assistants Fellows, 1995). This research aimed to determine the effectiveness of teaching methodologies employed in engineering lecture subjects, as applied to undergraduate electrical engineering subjects. The three methodologies under study were the lecture discussion method, reporting and technology–aided instruction.

Keywords: Teaching methods, teaching approach