Digital Health for Computer Engineering Classes: An Experience

Abstract

There are several teaching methods adopted in today’s engineering faculties. The traditional teaching-learning style with frontal lessons has proven to be more useful for theoretical aspects. When practice comes to play, laboratories and hands-on sessions are more effective on learning outcomes. Considering the computer engineering faculty, the “learning by doing” paradigm can be supported by the “learning by practice” and “learning by competing” approaches, by stimulating innovation and creative thinking and by developing experience in teamwork and project execution. In this paper, in the context of the project work associated to our computer engineering master degree course, we propose three case studies, parts of eHealth research projects currently under development and testing at our University in Southern Italy, each one characterized by specific constraints and issues to be addressed in order to find innovative solutions to such problems. These research activities are aimed at demonstrating how “healthy competition”, mainly based on team collaboration and cooperation, in project-based learning can be profitably deployed and exploited in computer engineering classes.