State-of-the-Art Practices and Educational Materials for Revitalizing Power Electronics and Electric Drives Curricula

NSF has previously funded the University of Minnesota to develop novel approaches and laboratory setups for the teaching of Power Electronics and Electric Drives. These innovative approaches and laboratory setups have been shown to be effective in attracting students into the power systems concentration in the Electrical Engineering degree program at the University of Minnesota, and these innovative methods have shown to have the flexibility to address the different learning styles of the students. As a consequence, these approaches can serve as national models for improving power systems courses at other institutions. Toward this end, this project is disseminating these approaches in effort to revitalize power electronics and electric drives courses on a national scale.

The management team for the project consists of the PI and two co-PIs from the University of Minnesota, and two co-PIs from other universities-- one from Tuskegee University and the other from the Arizona State University.

The structure of the project includes a minimum of three workshops for the dissemination of the practices and materials. Each workshop is formulated on the experiences of the management team with these innovative methods at the University of Minnesota. Each workshop is designed for approximately 100 participants. The participants of the workshops are provided with the detailed methods used in developing the approaches, and they are given training to familiarize them with the laboratory hardware. The goal is for each participant to gain the knowledge and experience to offer these or similar courses at his/her home institution. Finally, the participants are encouraged to adapt these laboratories and seek funding through the CCLI-A&I program.

The project consists of a detailed evaluation and assessment plan.