THEORY, INTERACTION, SIMULATIONS AND HANDS - ON EXPERIENCES: BLENDED LEARNING OF AN AUTOMATIC CONTROL COURSE

Automatic Control, also called feedback control has been a field of engineering science since the 1950s. A very attractive feature of the field is its generality and its wide application in many engineering areas; however, this feature also generates certain teaching and learning experience related challenges. The curriculum is extremely theoretical, the students need to have a strong mathematical background and they need to be able to handle very abstract concepts. In the past, the theoretical aspects of the course were complemented with MATLAB/Simulink numerical simulations to assist the teaching and learning. Currently, both teaching methods and students learning outcomes are being reviewed in an attempt to develop a more integrated learning experience. The aims of these changes are to: (1) increase interaction between the lecturer and the students and between the students themselves using e-learning technologies and interactive windows, (2) to assist students struggling with abstraction by using not only numerical simulations, but also 3D simulations to start with, and augmented/virtual reality in the future, (3) to increase student engagement with the taught material by using physical demonstrators during lectures. The physical demonstrators will be also available for students to use in their own time, (4) to engage with control engineers working in industry in order to understand the state of the art/needs in the professional field.