Teaching and Learning Basic Electronics with a Professional Circuit Analyzer Program

Abstract

Modem technology offers powerful professional programs that were originally designed for scientific and practical engineering purposes. These programs are now easily operated by simple graphic interfaces. Even if they offer much more than we may need for instructional purposes, these tools can still be very useful as a support for teaching and learning both the subject matter domain and additional general skills from relatively early stages of scientific and technological education. This article describes the instructional approaches developed for using a professional electronic circuit analyzer program as a learning environment for students in basic electronics courses and discusses the general implications of using such programs for instruction.