7/22/2026 Megan Altmyer
Two innovative approaches to engineering education were presented at the 2026 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference, highlighting new teaching methods designed to better prepare students for engineering careers.
Written by Megan Altmyer
Faculty and students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, shared two innovative approaches to engineering education at the 2026 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference, highlighting new teaching methods designed to better prepare students for engineering careers.
One poster presentation featured innovations for ECE 110, Introduction to Electronics, that encourage students to develop an entrepreneurial mindset through open-ended design experiences. The second showcased new curriculum developed for ECE 445, Senior Design Project Laboratory, to strengthen printed circuit board (PCB) design skills before students begin their capstone projects.
Graduate student Emma Park, a doctoral candidate in the College of Education, presented the ECE 110 research, while graduate students Jason Jung and Michael Gamota presented the ECE 445 project.
Building engineering judgment through design
Supported by the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education (AE3) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the ECE 110 project is part of a broader effort to integrate the KEEN Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM) throughout the department's circuits curriculum, including ECE 343 and ECE 469, with elements also incorporated into ECE 329.
Rather than focusing solely on procedural problem solving, the curriculum encourages students to develop curiosity, engineering judgment, experimentation, systems thinking, and value creation through authentic design experiences.
One example is the course's open-ended final design project. Students were challenged to build a circuit similar to The Clapper, activating an LED with a clap and turning it off with a second clap. While students were provided more circuit modules than necessary, they were tasked with determining which components were actually needed to achieve the desired functionality.
Over three weeks of laboratory work, students experimented with different approaches before discovering that only three modules — a microphone, amplifier, and BJT latch — were required to complete the project. They then documented and justified their design decisions and tradeoffs in their final reports.
"The poster highlighted a new course design created to help students develop their Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM)," said Park. "The course encourages students to explore and justify their design choices, building EM skills along the way."
Park said students consistently praised the project's unique approach during focus group interviews, while the conference provided an opportunity to share the instructional model with engineering educators from around the country and gather feedback for continued improvement.
The project also incorporates qualitative educational research to better understand students' learning experiences, complementing the quantitative assessment methods commonly used in engineering education.
Reflecting on the conference, Park said conversations among educators, researchers, and industry representatives demonstrated the value of interdisciplinary collaboration as a shared investment in the next generation of professionals.
"What makes this conference special is that this kind of cross-boundary exchange happens across sectors," she said. "It was energizing to see industry partners engaging with educators, researchers, and students."
Preparing students for capstone success
The second poster highlighted curriculum innovations in ECE 445, developed to better prepare students for PCB-based senior design projects.
Jung and Gamota created two instructional assignments that introduce students to the complete PCB development process before they begin designing their own capstone projects.
Students first complete a guided exercise that walks them through schematic capture, PCB layout, assembly, laboratory testing, and demonstration using development boards built around ESP32 or STM32 microcontrollers, both widely used industry platforms.
The assignments mirror the workflow students will encounter during their own design projects while providing a structured, low-risk environment to develop foundational PCB design skills.
By mastering the end-to-end PCB development process before beginning independent projects, students enter the capstone experience with greater confidence and practical experience.
"We created two assignments to teach students fundamental PCB design skills so that they are set up to succeed in their own PCB-based capstone projects," Jung said.
For Gamota, presenting the work at ASEE also provided an opportunity to exchange ideas with engineering educators from across the country.
“Presenting at ASEE was a valuable experience, and I was proud to represent the Illinois ECE department," Gamota said. "It was exciting to share our work on PCB design education with educators from universities across the country and hear about the challenges and successes they encounter in their own ECE programs. I hope that sharing our approach to incorporating PCB design skills will inspire other programs to consider similar experiences for their students."
Jung and Gamota’s participation was supported by the Zhang Cheng Family Scholarship, which was established by alumna Joy Zhang (Ph.D. ECE ’11) and her family to help ECE students present their work at conferences. The scholarship recognizes students whose research has been accepted for presentation and provides support for conference travel and related expenses.
Together, the two presentations demonstrate ECE's ongoing commitment to strengthening engineering education through innovative curriculum development while sharing successful teaching practices with the broader engineering education community.