Student Projects of Extended Study in Introductory Electromagnetics

It is well recognized that Electromagnetics is one of the most important disciplines yet is also a di-cult subject for undergraduate students to grasp. In the literature it has been advocated to incorporate real-world examples of applications to help improve student learning. In this work, we propose an approach that is complementary to the real-world examples one. In our approach, we encourage the students to extend the material from what has been covered in the class through participation in individual project. Positive results are obtained in terms of comprehension of the material, improvement of mathematical skills, as well as buildup of confldence in the participants. Electromagnetics is one of the most important bases of our modern life, upon which lay the life style enhancing technologies such as communication, RFID, wireless sensor network, antenna, and other electronic systems. Understanding the principles of Electromagnetics is thus required for undergraduate students majoring in Electrical Engineering to prepare them for a smooth and successful career. However, since electromagnetics is a strongly mathematical subject, it is often the case for a student to flnd it very di-cult to apply advanced mathematical techniques while maintaining a physical comprehension (1{5). In the literature it is observed that incorporating real- world examples of applications serves to improve student learning and to bring a colorful course material presentation. This is undoubtedly an efiective way of teaching electromagnetics. However, there might also be some limitations of this approach: The chosen real-world examples may have to be simple and the applicable principles from electromagnetics may be restricted considering the limited knowledge span and mathematical skills of the average student. For instance, the real world examples taken from one study were almost associated with electrostatics or magnetostatics. The very nature of electromagnetics, that is, time varying aspect, is unwantedly de-focused in this approach. In this work, we propose an approach that is complementary to the real-world examples one. In our approach, we encourage the students to extend the material from what has been covered in the class. For instance, after learning the re∞ection and transmission of a plane wave at the interface of two homogeneous media in the conventional setting, the students may proceed to work out with the help of the instructors the re∞ection and transmission phenomena when one of the media is anistropic. In this way, the comprehension of the material, the employment or even improvement of mathematical skills can be greatly boosted, which will in turn help build up the confldence and further curiosity of the students. The proposed extended study is not introduced as a mandatory part of the fundamental EM course; rather, it is based on voluntary participation. To maximize the participation among the students who are taking the EM class, we decide to provide the students with incentives to par- ticipate. Speciflcally, based on historical grades distribution of the EM class, the incentive for participation is set to some additional points within the range of one to six on a 100 scale. To minimize the confusion among the participants, they are instructed that either of three types is legitimate project: theoretical analysis, application oriented, and visualization generation. Yet for the flrst two categories, the content of the project can not be readily available from either the textbook or some other reference books. Rather, participants who choose these two categories need to work out something of their own: to flll in the details that are omitted in either the analytical material or the connection between EM theory and the speciflc application at hand. With that in mind, the participants are provided by a limited number of project topics which they can choose, yet the majority of topics is to be identifled by the participants. For the current study, each project is treated as an individual one, while interaction with each other and solicitation of assistance from the instructor are still highly encouraged. The project delivery package includes an oral presen- tation which lasts about 10 minutes plus some question and answer session, a written report, and source code (optional for those whose projects have involved some kind of numerical simulations or computer visualization). The performance is evaluated based on a number of factors including originality, thoroughness of comprehension, scope, and presentation (both oral and written).