Teaching with MATLAB does Wonders for Students

The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is renowned for its strong technological competency. The College of Engineering comprises of all five schools of engineering, namely Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE), Computer Engineering, Materials Engineering, Mechanical & Production Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering. Together they make up the bulk of schools existing in NTU.

NTU is currently the largest supplier of Electrical and Electronic engineers. There are some two thousand odd students studying the four-year EEE course. And every year, the course attendance is increasing.

In order to ensure the competency of every engineering graduate, the basic fundamentals of engineering subjects have to be grounded firmly. Towards this end, students have to fully understand the art of applying both scientific and mathematical principles to solve real-life engineering problems.

The Challenge

Engineering Mathematics is a compulsory unit to be undertaken by students studying in the School of EEE. Teaching this second-year unit is no easy task. Not only is the subject immensely technical and “dry” in content, but also it is abstract in concepts.

Due to the abstract nature of matrices and vectors taught in Engineering Mathematics, students find it difficult to comprehend and understand them without the help of graphics and diagrams.

Associate Professor Er Meng Joo, “When you talk about Maths conceptually, students don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The Solution

To help students further understand matrices and vectors in Engineering Mathematics, Associate Professor Er incorporates MATLAB with his teaching methods. He has also created several MATLAB programs by writing his own codes using MATLAB’s powerful commands.

“MATLAB is very useful; by using its visualising capabilities, I am able to teach students the applications of matrices and vectors in mathematics. For example, it lets them see the response of a dynamic system after transforming the problem into a linear algebra framework which involves matrices and vectors,” said Assoc. Prof. Er. 

“Because of MATLAB’s visualising capabilities, it allows students to better conceptualise data, especially mathematical equations…it allows students to see the linkage in what they’re learning in Maths versus what they can apply in reality.” Associate Professor Er Meng Joo Winner of Teacher of the Year Award,  1999 School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Division of Control and Instrumentation Nanyang Technology University

Results

Thanks to the beauty of visualisation in MATLAB, students are now able to better understand the abstract concepts taught in Engineering Mathematics. It has helped students see the linkage in what they’re learning in Maths versus what they can apply in reality.

“The understanding of abstract concepts have been reinforced, and judging from students’ feedback, they find MATLAB very useful, even to the extent of wanting more MATLAB programs to help in visualisation,” enthused Assoc. Prof. Er.

Choa Swee Leng, a third year EEE student, “With MATLAB, calculations were made simple and I could see results instantaneously to verify my matrix calculations.”

As students are able to understand abstract concepts better, they tend to be more appreciative. Because of this, Assoc. Prof. Er attained a high rating of 4+ over the overall figure of 5 (4+/5) in his teaching feedback score. This is a rating which  most professors who lecture Mathematics find it difficult to attain.

Results of students studying Engineering Mathematics also improved as compared to previous students who could not understand these concepts without the help of MATLAB.

Special Note