Teaching an Electrical Circuits Course Using a Virtual Lab

This paper describes designing and implementing a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) study in a basic electrical circuits course at LaGuardia Community College. Inspired by my understanding of Shulman’s (2005) concept of “signature pedagogy” and Mazur’s (2009) emphasis on student-centered approaches, and aware that our students did not always understand the electrical theory concepts presented in class, I decided to change my pedagogy. We explain our efforts to train our students to think as engineers, first by making them more “visible” and “accountable” in the classroom, and second, by offering them hands-on practice through the use of Multisim, a free and open source simulation software. The study presented here reports the effect that using Multisim had on our students’ ability to learn and apply electrical theories and concepts. The implications for the teaching of the basic electrical circuit course are offered as well as my reflection on my own growth as a teacher and my developing understanding of the scholarship of teaching and learning.