Continuous improvement in teaching microprocessor systems design a review of efforts in using different tools, techniques and methods to satisfy students' needs

Abstract

Microprocessor Systems Design is a core course in our curricula of both Computer Engineering and Systems (CES) program and Electrical Engineering (EE) program. It is offered to seniors in the autumn quarter and requires prerequisite on Computer Architecture which covers subjects including instruction set design, and assembly programming. As a continuation of a 200 level core course-Introduction to Logic Design, and a 300 level core course-Digital Systems Design with FPGA using Verilog, also functioning as a bridge to Senior Project, our 400 level Microprocessor Systems Design course focuses on introducing hardware and software design techniques for microprocessor-based systems. Back to a decade ago, when first designing this course, several processor families were considered and compared. We finally chose Microchip's 8-bit microcontroller PIC18F4520 as the study topic; correspondingly, the tools included Microchip PICDEM2 Plus board, MPLAB IDE as well as the MPLAB ICD2 evaluation kit. With the advancement of techniques, and to meet students' needs, we redesigned the course and switched to Texas Instrument's Tiva C series Microcontroller TM4C1294NCPDT-an IoT enabled High performance 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M4F based MCU. Labs and course project were designed based on the Connected LaunchPad EK-TM4C1294XL; students got programming experience with both Keil µVision IDE and Code Composer Studio (CCS) IDE. To achieve teaching effectiveness, the main method we took is the project-centered pedagogy which has been endorsed at many universities world-wide. Each lab is regarded as a small project. After the concepts and basic principles are delivered and discussed during lectures, students need to find out all the necessary information by reading textbooks and digging into piles of technical documents, and generate the problem solution, which should also satisfy the project requirements. Taking into account ABET assessment criteria and changes of students group-CES students only in the first several years and a mixed class with both CES and EE students recently, we also adopted the strategy of cooperative learning. In addition to encouraging students to contribute to discussions on weekly small projects/labs, the final course project requires group work. Each group was formed by members with different background, e.g., one from CES program and another from EE program. Individual efforts were assessed based on group work evaluation to ensure fairness and equity. According to students' feedback, the cooperative learning method has successfully promoted students' learning and decision making; it also greatly enhanced students' racial tolerance and critical thinking capability. The contribution of this paper is that we provide a review to share our experience in teaching Microprocessor Systems Design in the past decade. Details to be presented include: (1) how we design our curriculum course sequence to ensure students get both the fundamentals and the hands-on exercise in one quarter; (2) how we help prepare students for their future career by teaching them state-of-the-art tools and techniques; (3) how we continuously improve our teaching methods by considering ABET assessment criteria, students' course evaluation/feedback, and changes in the students group caused by program's expansion. The effectiveness of our teaching is supported and verified by students' evaluations.