A Spiral Step-by-Step Educational Method for Cultivating Competent Embedded System Engineers to Meet Industry Demands

Embedded system technologies are undergoing dramatic change. Competent embedded system engineers are becoming a scarce resource in the industry. Given this, universities should revise their specialist education to meet industry demands. In this paper, a spirally tight-coupled step-by-step educational method, based on an analysis of industry requirements, is proposed. The learning process consists of multiple learning circles piled up in a spiral. Each learning circle consists of three steps: lecture, demo, and hands-on practice, which are tight-coupled to enable students to readily revisit essential knowledge. The circle currently being studied is directly based on the previous circle, so as to maintain a smooth learning curve. Since students can quickly see the result of their work, their motivation to learn remains high. Since a learning circle takes only a short period to complete, the core knowledge and skills can be repeated in different forms across the three types of educational step so that students can master them. The students' achievement and performance using the proposed method show that it can enable them to master the requisite knowledge and effectively transform this into skills.