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Concept Maps for an Integrated Electrical Engineering Curriculum

Dr. Bahaa E. A. Saleh
Friday, September 26, 2008
11:30AM - Harris Center 101

Abstract


The electrical engineering curriculum is often impoverished by a lack of integration among the various courses and curricular components. The outcome is a pool of graduates with weak understanding of the interconnections among basic concepts and an aversion to problems of interdisciplinary nature. Concept maps are explicit connections among the concepts or methods taught in a single course or different courses throughout the program. Maps of convergence knowledge establish why and how multiple concepts taught in introductory courses are necessary to understand applications (or other concepts) that appear later in the curriculum. Diversity maps establish the many ways in which a single concept can be utilized in various courses. Congruence maps highlight analogies, similarities, or equivalence between concepts or methods taught in different courses. Confluence maps exhibit the coming together of several seemingly independent streams of knowledge that are necessary to address one problem or to build a single system. The teaching of concept maps should significantly enhance the students' assimilation, retention, recall, and application of knowledge to the solution of new problems, particularly those of complex or interdisciplinary nature. These general concepts will be instantiated by examples from the electrical engineering curriculum, and potential venues for communicating these concepts to the students will be described.

Short Bio


Bahaa E. A. Saleh is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University. He served as Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Boston University in 1994-2007. He is Deputy Director of the NSF Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems, an NSF Engineering Research Center. He is also co-director of the Quantum Imaging Laboratory and a member of the Boston University Photonics Center. He received the Ph.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University and held faculty and research positions at the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, Max Planck Institute in Germany, the University of California-Berkeley, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Columbia University, the University of Vienna, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was a faculty member from 1977 to 1994 and served as Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1990 to 1994. In January 2009, he will become Dean of the College of Optics and Photonics and Director of CREOL at the University of Central Florida.

Saleh's research contributions cover a broad spectrum of topics in optics and photonics including statistical, nonlinear, and quantum optics, photodetectors, and subsurface imaging. He is the author of two books, Photoelectron Statistics (Springer, 1978) and Fundamentals of Photonics (Wiley, 1991, 2nd edition, 2007, with M. C. Teich), and more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is the founding editor of OSA's Advances in Optics and Photonics (AOP), a new journal of reviews and tutorials. He served as editor of JOSA-A in 1991-97. Saleh is Fellow of IEEE, OSA, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and recipient of the 1999 OSA Beller Award for outstanding contributions to optical science and engineering education, the 2004 BACUS award for contributions to photomask technology, the 2006 Kuwait Prize for contributions to optical science, and the OSA 2008 Distinguished Service Award. http://people.bu.edu/besaleh/

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