The Future of Education

The quality of student projects in a first-year Computer Architecture course has long been a concern, with many submissions reflecting insufficient mastery of foundational concepts and a lack of confidence to tackle challenging tasks. These issues are compounded by students’ limited base knowledge and undeveloped self-learning abilities, which are critical for success in project-based learning (PBL). To address these challenges, the course’s teaching sessions were doubled from six to twelve, while assignments were redesigned to integrate knowledge from multiple sessions. This intervention aimed to provide a stronger foundation, foster self-learning, and enhance project outcomes. The results showed significant improvements in student performance and confidence. Project grades increased substantially, with more than 50\% of students achieving a grade of B or higher in 2024, compared to only 25\% in 2023. Students reported greater confidence in undertaking challenging projects, with over 80\% attributing this to the enhanced teaching sessions. Self-learning also improved, as 84\% of students independently explored advanced topics like sensor integration and communication protocols to complete more sophisticated projects. Despite the reduction in project implementation time from 15 to 6 weeks, the projects demonstrated higher complexity and quality, underscoring the critical role of foundational instruction. This study highlights the importance of integrating structured teaching sessions with guided assignments to bolster foundational knowledge and promote self-learning. The findings provide actionable insights for improving PBL frameworks, contributing to enhanced educational practices in engineering and related disciplines.