THE FLD METHOD SUMMARIZED

This document describes the Feedbacked Lecture Diary (FLD) method: While following this course student's tasks are:

1. Follow lectures by giving your feedback in Lecture Diaries (7/12 lecture listening required, see the Lecture Diary guide later in this document). If not, you should submit a special assignment.
2. Follow tutorials if you want to learn from solved examples (4/5) and by practicing of your own (1/5).
3. Participate to a Discussion Agent Group (DAG) - Group selects chair and secretary for one lecture. Group purpose is just to pinpoint course details or things not understood (of their own and by using Study Guides) in lecture slides at the discussion following the lecture. (See the DAG Guide later in this document)
4. Participate to exam.

• Exam 60 %
• Lecture Diary/Special Assignment 20 %
• Tutorials 10 %
• Working in a DAG 10%

In case if someone is not able to submit lecture diaries (the minimum number is 7/12) it can be compensated by writing a special assignment of an agreed topic of length of 30-50 pages. There is no compensation available if you would not like to participate to tutorials or agent-groups. However, getting 80% of the total points entitles for grade 5 in this course.

Differences to ROC-method (as applied during spring 2001)

• In FLD method lectures are given by course instructor only, no seminar presentations
• In FLD method tutorials consists mainly on solved exercises (4/5), only few (1/5) exercises are solved by yourself 
• Students keep Lecture Diary, in ROC this was done by the course instructor - Thus you can rapidly diagnose of your own if lecture material is understood. Lecture Diaries are checked by other students that helps them to understand the lecture and to improve their own diary for the next lecture.
• In FLD lecture handouts are prepared by course instructor and they are freely available at the homepage. In ROC method they were prepared by students and were generally not distributed.
• In FLD Discussion Agent Groups are formed that focus on each lecture to pinpoint the difficult things

Let us now discuss the FLD method in more details:

LECTURES

Lecture handouts (Lecture slides, Study Guides and tutorial assignments) are available at the end of this document for downloading and each student coming to lectures should study them beforehand in order to find out the items (for his/hers opinion) that should be submitted for discussion as described below:

Each lecture consists of two parts:

1. Introductory part given by the course instructor.
2. Discussion session given by Discussion Agent-Group (DAG), students and instructor.

For discussion part students are divided into 12 groups and one group is assigned for each lecture to work as its DAG. By using the given study guide, and lecture slides, each DAG will prepare answers to the selected questions (See the DAG-guide). Lecture participants are challenged to give their response to DAG questions during discussion session. Also, the lecture participants are agitated to submit their own questions by focusing on the topics given in lecture slides / DAG presentation and in Study Guides. Efficiency of the DAG is voted by lecture participates at the end of lecture that determines the DAG grade (up to 10% of the overall grade for each group participant).

TUTORIALS

Tutorials consists of two parts:

1. Explaining solved examples (4/5)
2. Solving home assignments (1/5)

There exits one week period to return the home assignment. Returned assignments are awarded by maximum of 10 % of the overall grade in linear scale.

LECTURE DIARY

Lecture Diaries are returned weekly and they are distributed back to students for grading. Each student shall grade (with grading scale 0-5) as many lecture diaries as he/she has submitted. One should submit at least seven lecture diary. However, full compensation of 20 % of the overall grade is possible only if all the lecture diaries are submitted. See the end of this document for an example of a Lecture Diary.

Purpose of the DAG is to catalyze discussion after the introductory lecture. For this reason DAG members should get themselves familiar with the lecture material and study guide well before the lecture and make clear for themselves the themes they would like to generate discussion. If it appears that there remains unsolved questions after the session they will be discussed in next sessions. It is important to note the time reserved for discussion is maximum of 45 min only.

Group's tasks

• Group should select session Chair. The role of the session chair is to give the floor for audience and to guide discussion generally.
• Group should select a secretary whose task is to write down all the questions and answers popping out at the session. The minutes should be submitted to the course instructor within two days and it will appear at the course homepage.
• Lecture themes (from lecture transparencies and Study Guides) must be divided to group members such that each member shall carry about the same workload. Also chair and secretary must participate on drafting the questions. Study Guides are available at the course homepage.

Member's tasks

Each group member should

• Make a list of interesting questions/issues she/he knows the answer. Purpose of these questions is to clarify/underline important topics of the lecture (from one's personal view)
• Make a list of topics/themes/details that are not understood
• Propose answers to the suggested questions (as listed above)
• Ask the suggested questions from the audience during the session

• Lecture Diary summarizes the essential elements of a lecture, gives critical view of the discussed topic(s) and points out your own way of understanding. Therefore, its purpose is to develop critical thinking and reassure that you have got a grip what was discussed.

• It is strongly recommended that you use library / Web to get more information; especially for the facts you don't understand. You may also discuss the lecture topics at the tutorials.

• Don't speculate - give arguments for your statements and observations! The best way to give criticism is to first analyze the current theory (status) and then to suggest a justified and applicable improvement!

• A well-done Lecture Diary is also a splendid tool for preparing to exam!

• Lecture Diary is also a diagnostic tool: If it appears that you have difficulties in writing it you have not been able to follow the lecture. In this case, try to find the reason as soon as possible!

• Note that you probably don't have time to write the diary during the lecture (you make only short notes) but you should write the complete version as soon as possible (when you still remember the lecture).
  
• Familiarize yourself with the example Lecture Diary at the end of this document

Discuss what were the essential elements of this lecture? (Do not copy lecturing slides but use your own words!) Use many figures! You may use Mind Mapping chart to show the logical connections of the lecture topics.

Discuss why these concepts and this information is important for science, society and you. Suggest if the studying of this topic could be made more fruitful.

Give a critical point of view of a single lecturing topic: How this could be applied, why it should be applied! Discuss what you could not comprehend! How this lecturing topic could be illustrated?

What is a consequence of this topic with respect of applications? Where and how this topic is applied?

Each student shall grade as many lecture diaries he/she has submitted. One should read the lecture diary carefully through and justify if it covers the four key points explained in " GUIDE FOR WRITING A LECTURE DIARY "-section.

In your grading you must

• Explain what is good in this lecture diary, why?

• Explain what is not covered -Suggest how would you make it better!
• Give a grade for the lecture diary at the scale 0 - 5.

Grading of Lecture Diary is always subjective. However, by following the lecture carefully by yourself you enable more justified comments. Return your grade/comments at the same time you return the lecture diary you have graded. For an example of a Lecture Diary see at the end of this document.

LECTURE DIARY 23.3.2000 (example)

Lecture topic: Exponential Modulation

Contents: This lecture discussed about exponential modulation that is used for instance in FM-radios. In analysis of FM we noticed that it can not be analyzed as simply as linear modulation techniques. Therefore one must use a set of special cases to find out how it works. This is done gradually such that first narrow band modulation is discussed and then wideband modulation with tones and finally wideband modulation with arbitrary modulation signal. This was used also to determine the required bandwidth. Detection of FM was discussed. It was interesting to note that FM and AM detection carries some similarities as shown in the figure below:

Motivation: Considering EM is important for two reasons. First is gives a set of ideas to analyze non-linear systems. One can see that their analysis is not necessary more difficult than analyzing AM systems but one needs to have a grip how problems can be simplified or to extract the essential elements. Secondly, analyzing EM forms basics to understand phase shift keying modulation, for instance its spectral presentations.

Understanding: In this lecture understanding of FM-AM conversion was interesting. It is a handy way to convert phase changes to amplitude changes for detection. One must use limiters to cut-out channel introduced amplitude distortion. Also channel may introduce FM-AM conversion that is alleviated by equalizer. Therefore, this is an interesting topic having many applications. Also software radio was discussed that I got so interested that I went to the Web and found an interesting article (http://www.nml.org/n_1999-3.htm). Only a brief look revealed that the introduction of A/D conversion can change receiver structure a great deal. However, signal properties are still the same - only their processing is now based on making DSP-based calculations. I wonder if there exists any simulation tools that can be used to study software radios more closely?

Applications: EM is used because it can dramatically improve post detection SNR still this is paid by increased transmission bandwidth. EM is applied in analog radios and in TVs sound channel. Various phase modulation techniques as QPSK and M-PSK are a form of EM. GSM - system applies Gaussian Shift Keying that is a filtered phase modulation technique having narrow bandwidth and smooth envelope. In modern digital systems, as in satellite or in cellular communications, M-level EM is practically always combined to efficient channel coding as Turbo-coding or concatenated coding.

COURSE HANDOUTS (SPRING 2002)