Physical Concepts about Telecommunications Theory Focusing on Knowledge Application

Oscar H. Salinas, Angel Estrada Arteaga, Martha E. Luna Ortíz, Marco A. Amado González

Academic Division of Information and Communication Technologies, Universidad Tecnológica Emiliano Zapata del Estado de Morelos, Emiliano Zapata, México.
Software Development Center, Universidad Tecnológica Emiliano Zapata del Estado de Morelos, Emiliano Zapata, México.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2014.51003                

Abstract

Teaching telecommunications theory for Engineering Technologies Information students can be viewed as an interesting challenge. This is mainly due to Telecommunications theory which integrates knowledge about two basic sciences: physics and mathematics. The proposal explained in this paper focused on obtaining and deeply understanding the physical concepts related to the theory of telecommunications, rather than memorizing equations, which most of the time would not make sense for students. Engineering students’ work focusing on learning the physical and mathematical concepts, was able to design and develop academic tools with two important characteristics for Universities with low budget: easy to use and inexpensive. Therefore, the teaching-learning process is more efficient being adjusted to their endemic circumstances about understanding, knowledge application and few economic resources. Moreover those students were facing less problems understanding and handling the mathematical equations related to the telecommunications theory. Following the proposed procedure, students have designed and built academic tools, such as videos, crosswords, C# applications, graphing on worksheets, and so on. To monitor progress weekly, evaluation was conducted using questionnaires without equations, which were evaluated by the students themselves. Electronic and pedagogical tools were combined to design specific audiovisual aids to facilitate and assure that students were obtaining and retaining those physical and mathematical concepts before starting the equations handling. A comparison was done about groups working under two scenarios: the one described above and the other called in this report “traditional”. A drastic difference about student’s grades between two groups was observed.

Keywords

Physics; Telecommunications; Electromagnetic Theory; Pedagogical; Software; Learning Styles

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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