Increasing the effectiveness of higher skills training by providing new methods of teaching laboratory and workshop courses - Case study of electrical engineering

Higher skill education is one of the pillars of sustainable development of any country due to the training of industry experts. The main and important part of higher skills education is laboratory and workshop courses in which the student gets acquainted with the tools and equipment related to his / her field of study and learns the topics that he / she has studied theoretically and in practice. One of the challenges of practical courses is the high cost of equipping or updating laboratories and workshops. Also, the lack of available equipment in proportion to the number of students does not provide enough time for the teacher and the student to complete the learning process. In this article, considering the mentioned limitations, new approaches of skill higher education are presented with emphasis on laboratory and workshop courses. These approaches use the latest communication technologies to apply them in the service of skills training. By introducing models such as augmented reality, software simulation, group training and virtual training and the requirements for their implementation, the effect of each method in increasing the effectiveness of higher skills training is explained. Finally, with a case study of electrical engineering, each of the introduced teaching aid methods are analyzed and evaluated based on indicators such as availability, cost of equipment and implementation, impact on improving the level of teaching and covering the educational topic.