Integrated approach to teaching engineering courses

Many undergraduate engineering students have difficulty understanding the connections between the different engineering courses they are required to take. Too many of them focus on learning just the details of a specific course without any consideration of how the concepts fit with those of other courses. The integrated approach to teaching engineering involves a 'systems view' to the curriculum. In this approach, one or more systems are presented to the students early in their engineering program. Throughout their courses, the students are reminded of where they are in the system. A specific example is discussed of how this approach is being used as test case with five courses in the electrical engineering curriculum at the United States Air Force Academy. The resulting improvement in student performance is also discussed.