Lessons Learned from Implementing Application-Oriented Hands-On Activities for Continuous-Time Signal Processing Courses [SP Education]

For the past eight years, we have used application-oriented activities in the introductory CTSS course. Such activities can help students to connect the mathematical theory learned in the course to how the theory is applied in real-world applications. The level of detail in the activity needs to be carefully monitored by the instructor to not overwhelm the students and make it easier for the students to connect the theory to the application. Using hardware-based activities can make it easier for students to associate the theory to the application by facilitating real-time cause-effect relationships. The manner in which the application-oriented activities are performed can have a tremendous impact in how well students are able to better understand the theory. This article describes our experiences with using these types of experiments and the lessons learned that increase their effectiveness.