Circuit Idea/Introducing Sensomotor Activities

We can use heuristic principles to build sensorimotor (kinesthetic) representations in the students, in which a series of motor acts are performed on the studied circuit and its reactions to these effects are sensed. "Live" objects are convenient for this (analogies, voltage bars and diagrams, graphic IV curves, which reflect the state of the object under study on the screen.

Real experiments

To "feel" the operation of more abstract electronic devices, we can manually emulate them and then show their evolution to fully automatic. For example, the role of an operational amplifier in negative feedback circuits can be performed first by a "manually controlled voltage source", then by a personal computer with analog ports and appropriate software, and finally by a real operational amplifier . In this way, by actually "playing" the evolution of an electronic circuit from "manual" to fully automatic, the person mentally identifies with the studied object (personal analogy, empathy), imagines how it performs its functions, and thus understands even better its operation.

Mental experiments

Sensorimotor representations can even be constructed using thought experiments. So, for example, we can study a common-emitter circuit by mentally "raising" and "lowering" the voltage of the transistor base. In a common-base circuit, we can move the voltage of the emitter; in a differential amplifier, we can move both.