ACHIEVING QUALITY TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH INTEGRATING PROPER RESEARCH ACTIVITIES IN MECHATRONICS EDUCATION

摘要

This paper addresses an approach to improve the quality of engineering education by incorporating research components into the teaching in the form of team projects. By reflecting the author's experience on teaching an undergraduate junior course―ME106/EE106 Mechatronics, the feasibility and effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated. It is shown that integrating research activities, industry sponsored projects, lab construction, and national student design contests into teaching helps improving the quality of engineering education. Properly integrating research activities into classroom also helps the faculty to maintain the dynamic balance between the teaching and research.