(1)

Implemented case teaching and conducted discussions

Case teaching is a teaching method that encourages students to make analysis and conduct discussions through description of a concrete educational situation. The teachers supplemented their teaching with case studies to enhance students’ understanding and help them grasp important and difficult points, avoiding compulsory education or the comprehensive teaching style brought about by the situation of poor learning outcomes. For example, through an actual example of a crossroad traffic light, students could quickly understand the different working ways of timers and the two kinds of response mode (inquiry and interruption). Through the use of a simple electronic organ, students could understand and master the matrix keyboard’s working principle and interface advantage. This practice showed that case teaching could strengthen the correlation between curriculum knowledge and the real world and help to broaden students’ professional views.

(2)

Introduced flipped teaching and promoted learner autonomy

Flipped classroom is a kind of new class mode. The teachers require students to autonomously learn teaching resources online and refer information. Students prepare lecture notes covering major topics and then discuss and analyze the topics with others in class. Another method is chapter summary. This requires students to summarize a chapter’s content according to their own learning, understanding, and digestion. They share and communicate with others in class. In flipped teaching, the roles were switched between teachers and students. The classroom became a good platform that the teacher and students could actively communicate and interact in. The students deeply understood the relevant theories of microcontroller principles and application and interface techniques through class discussions. Flipped teaching strengthened students’ learning initiative, promoted the integration of course knowledge, and helped set up a complete knowledge system.

(1)

Formed a learning community and explored “peer learning”

Students in the course were divided into 10–12 groups, each composed of 3–4 persons. They conducted mutual learning after class, such as preparing the lecture notes for the “flipped classroom” and summarizing chapter content through discussions. This kind of peer cooperation learning has many advantages in contrast with traditional individual learning. The students reflected that they could learn from each other, supervise each other, and complement each other. Through discussion, they inspired talent and had epiphanies about ambiguous concepts and difficult points. Under the guidance of the group leader, they shared different opinions, performed their respective duties to accomplish exploratory tasks, and further enhanced their personal responsibility and collective cohesion.

(2)

Pushed “excellent student waiver” to implement individuation teaching

“Excellent student waiver” is a concept of project learning and study. It is centered on students and aims to cultivate their abilities. Students who had any energy left applied to be excused from the final written examination and submitted an answer using a combination of course and relevant knowledge, namely designing a microcontroller application system. They went through the whole process of scientific research, including project application, independent research, schema design, debugging, summarizing, and defending. “Excellent student waiver” gave students an environment more suitable for creative and independent learning. It also inspired their passion to learn and developed their talents and innovation potential. This is an effective method to realize different education and individuation teaching and can promote the interaction of teaching and scientific research, learning, and research.

In the past nine years, nearly 200 students have designed more than 90 creative microcontroller application systems that have been integrated with optics, precision apparatus, electron and computer technology, etc. Students’ creative desire, creativity, and work quality were far beyond the teacher’s expectations. For example, the system “laser engraving machine based on 8051 microcontroller” had the characteristics of quasi device. It used a rectangular coordinate frame and high-power laser, ablated in ordinary cardboard point by point and then carved out a clear pattern and character. Another project was a “laser drawing system based on a microcontroller,”which made bold attempts to introduce a 2D laser scanning system and could described a stable monochrome pattern with a cheap cost. In addition, the “acoustic aurora LED system” showed a magical pattern shape and gorgeous color changes on an LED circular array; the “dynamic light screen system,”which controlled equipment and linkage show effects through gestures, could be regarded as the prototype of virtual reality in the future; “intelligent bicycle wheels spinning LED display system” exemplified young people’s movement, sunshine, and passion through the cool dynamic display of bicycle wheels. The reforms of “excellent student waiver” have received widespread praise. Many students thought that the project design experience enhanced their endurance and spirit of challenge and became more confident about conquering future difficulties.

(3)

Arranged exploratory task to guide students’ diverging thoughts

Exploratory tasks such as organizing examination papers were assigned to students to guide their divergent thinking and strengthen their exploring consciousness. Teachers requested that such papers should contain different types of subjective/objective questions and that students should add annotations about each question’s knowledge points. To complete the task, the students had to comprehensively organize all the course knowledge. They needed to understand the emphasis and difficulty and grasp the course overall context. Students also had access to a large number of studies for in-depth analysis and thinking so that they could elaborately design the paper to judge the learning effect. Papers submitted by students contained different text types and difficulties, including true or false, multiple choice, blank filling, short answers, and coding and comprehensive design. The content of the papers covered comprehensive and clear knowledge and well embodied the divergent thinking of students.

(1)

Adopted diversified evaluation to assess comprehensive ability

Students’ score became more objective and impartial by perfecting the evaluation system. The course grade of the students participating in “excellent student waiver” was divided into four parts, namely, peacetime performance, process test, project design, and awarding points. Other students’ grades were divided into five parts: peacetime performance, process test, experimentation, final exam, and awarding points. Each part had multiple elements, while different elements evaluated students’ knowledge and ability from different aspects. Various methods of encouragement were used to promote students’ enthusiasm for learning. All the students conducted questionnaire investigation. The students participated in chapter summary, and organizing examination papers accounted for 51% and 45% respectively.

(2)

Adopted process assessment to promote comprehensive development

Each element of diversified evaluation was supported by process assessment. Peacetime performance included ten homework assignments, self-study, and cooperation study after the classroom. Process test included at least six instances of online testing and four instances of class testing. Experimental grade covered the whole process of experiment preview, simulation, operation, testing, results,and reporting.