Design and development of PC‐IMAT: Teaching strategies for acoustical oceanography

The PC‐IMAT (Personalized Curriculum for Interactive Multisensor Analysis Training) project is proving to be a flexible and effectively evolving computer‐based training/educational platform needed to help tackle ASW and other tasks which require extensive analysis, classification, and interpretational skills. Midshipman taking SP411 (Underwater Acoustics and Sonar) are currently using PC‐IMAT [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 101, 3096A (1997)] to help investigate effective instructional strategies which convey understanding of a complex multivariate domain (like ray trace or propagation loss models). Classroom demonstration lectures and out‐of‐class projects allow students to successfully interact with experimental apparatus and make actual measurements (e.g., Fourier analysis, detection theory, beam pattern functions, sound speed versus temperature, computer ray tracing, reflection and transmission at an interface, and target strength versus angle of a scale model sub). However, a link between textbook theories, the...