amplifiers to amplify the sound of their own voices.
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| Prof. Yannis Tsividis assists Bronx Science seniors
as they connect operational amplifiers to amplify the sound of their own voices. |
Columbia is committed to serving both its immediate community and the city at large, and, as in so many areas of late, the Engineering School is providing leadership in outreach for other schools to emulate. The Engineering School is strengthening its educational ties with its neighbor to the north, The Bronx.
In separate initiatives, SEAS is encouraging students from two high schools in that borough to travel to the Morningside Campus to learn more about hands-on engineering. The schools, separated by miles and by educational culture, are Morris High School and the Bronx High School of Science.
The Engineering School initiative with Bronx High School of Science has selected students attending a first-year electrical engineering course taught by Prof. Yannis Tsividis. Prof. Tsividis, who created the course as part of the School's initiative to move engineering courses "up front" in the curriculum, has been hailed as a "Great Teacher" by the Society of Columbia Graduates and as a "Distinguished Faculty Teacher" by the Engineering School Alumni Association. Prior to creating this course, the first formal course in EE was for sophomores and was entirely theoretical; there was no lab as part of the class.
Prof. Tsividis's rationale for creating the first-year course stemmed from his observations of today's students. "Today's students are very different from their counterparts decades ago," he said. "They have not tinkered, they are impatient and they want to see results right away. They relate to the computer screen extremely well, but have the impression that all that needs to be done is hit a few keys. They have no prior exposure to physical systems such as hardware." Electronics, he said, allows for experimentation with real hardware and provides convincing proof to the students of the utility of the math and physics they have taken.
"Students in some schools often use computer simulation as a substitute for thinking," he said, "but I insist on reality before virtual reality." As a result, his first-year students see "the real thing and know what it is."
As befits a Great Teacher, he has honed his experiments to reinforce concepts and bring to life the material learned in his lecture. "We've recently added an experiment where the students bring in their favorite CDs, process the sound through the circuits they are studying, and listen to the result. We try to make the experiments relate to the students' senses."
He has 20 Bronx High School students in a special late-afternoon class that he teaches. The class was so popular that it had to be restricted mostly to students taking AP calculus and physics and who were applying to Columbia. (Existence of the course spread by word-of-mouth so that a few students from Stuyvesant High School also slipped in.) All the students will receive credit for the course even if they choose a different major.
"These students are, in most respects, equal to the SEAS first year class," he said. "I was impressed when I found that, after the midterm, their average grade was almost identical to my regular first-years."