How to teach at the university level through an active learning approach? Consequences for teaching basic electrical measurements

This paper is an updated (August 2004) and enlarged version of a keynote lecture presented at the 2002 IMEKO TC-1 International Conference "Education in Measurements and Instrumentation-Challenges of New Technologies", Wroclaw, Poland, 9-10 September 2002. A completely new engineering curriculum has been progressively introduced since 2000-2001 at the Universite catholique de Louvain in Belgium with a modern educational approach which strongly emphasises active learning based on projects and problems. The paper will, as an introductory part, present the whys, whats and hows of this revolution. An example of a multidisciplinary project at graduate level will be outlined. As the consequence of this new teaching context, the place for traditional lecture courses is reduced to a small portion of the curriculum. It is against a background of limited time that a re-centring is needed in terms of what subjects are essential to provide a basic training in electrical measurements and instrumentation for every student in electrical and electromechanical engineering. The paper will draw up a list of un-circumventing topics to be taught, accompanied by appropriate comments. We conclude with the presentation of a laboratory exercise in basic electrical measurements illustrating the new educational method by its problem-based learning approach. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved