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The course "Materials in Electrical Engineering" is a core course in the Mechatronics curriculum at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. In the past, this course was comprehensive and mainly theory-based. Teaching methods used in this course had not been changed for many years, and were mainly based on a traditional approach. They were therefore often outdated, and boring for students. In addition, the lack of modern materials characterization equipment was a significant weakness of the course in its early stages. This paper presents the main aspects of the modified course, which features a greater inclusion of modern equipment in its teaching methodology; in particular it introduces the Hall effect measurement system as an indispensable characterization technique in education, research and in the semiconductor industry. This paper also describes how students can be taught to use the Hall effect measurement system to determine the structural and electrical characteristics of different materials. Finally, students' feedback and observations on the modified course and the applied teaching methodology are discussed. © 2009 IEEE.