The microprocessors and microcontrollers are playing an extremely important role in a wide range of engineering applications. Nearly all intelligent electronic devices nowadays use one or more microprocessor or microcontroller chips. Microprocessor courses are currently taught by electrical engineering departments of all universities in the world. The classical method of teaching such courses is largely based on theory and little practical sessions. In this paper, a new approach is proposed for the teaching of microprocessor and microcontroller courses. This new approach enables students to learn the practical use of microprocessors and microcontrollers from a practical point of view. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)