Roy Brixen's comment to my previous entry called Top 10 Reasons... was right on target. If you have not done so, read it as it tells you what we all need to be doing and why.
I continuously wonder just how much of the low electronic enrollment problem is our own. That is, the problems with the college, curriculum, course content, and our own up to date knowledge. I have to think that this is a major piece of it but I haven't encountered too many of you who will stand up and say that. So many of you believe you are doing just the right thing. I am afraid I disagree.
First, I don't want to make any of you mad, but you have to quit living in the past and in denial. The AAS degree curriculum in electronics as it is currently taught in most community colleges is dated. It has not changed materially in the past 25 years since microprocessors were added. Yet, in that time electronics has really moved on. The jobs have changed as well as the knowledge and skill requirments of those to fill those jobs. Yet you ignore it. Why? Is it because you don't see and recognize the changes or you simply do not wish to take the time or make the effort to change things?
I should say that I was department head for 5 years and understand why instructors don't keep up to date or make changes. Usually they are too busy teaching their 4 courses per semester and doing all the usual academic meetings and stuff. Who has time? I recognize that problem, but it can no long be an excuse.
As a writer/editor for one of the largest electronic magazines in the world, I visit companies and talk to engineers, technicians, executives in industry every day. And what I see and hear is very much skewed from what is being taught in the colleges. It is a major skew. As an adjunct professor for one of these colleges, I do my best to include the latest components, circuits and methods to make sure the couse content is current. Yet, I feel I am only one of a very few who do this. All I can say is , that you are teaching the wrong things people. The emphasis and content is all wrong for today's jobs and technology.
I will say this if it makes you feel any better. Virtually all of the faculty I have ever seen do a superior job of teaching. The quality, committment, and materials are typically beyond approach. Yet, they are either seriously dated or simply no longer needed. The best example I can give is the continued massive devotion to teaching everything about BJT biasing when most (over 95%) of all transistors today are MOSFETs. You can claim all you want about how academically effective this is to improve thinking and so on, but I can tell you it is a huge waste of time as the modern tech never does bias a BJT. What a huge waste of time which is always so precious in an AAS degree program anyway. We all claim that there is never enough time to cover all that we need to cover. And it is true. But maybe if we eliminated the irrelevant or at least minimized it, we would have more room for the more recent and interesting material.
It is difficult to change courses and curricula, I recognize that. The college itself and its policies make it difficult. And the state and accrediting bodies don't make it any easier either. Yet we must try. My recommendation is to do it a little at a time. In each course you teach, each time you teach, introduce one new up to date item not cover before. That way it will take less time and eventually you will have an up to date course. Just a thought...
If you don't do it who will?
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Here's an interesting, and true, story as to how one California community college updated its ET program. In the Central Valley of California, rich in agriculture, one finds about eight major cities--each with a community college. We call them ag-towns. At the northern end of the Valley, a small school with a three-man ET department was struggling for enrollment. Year after year after year. The curriculum had been written and verified by the faculty years before so that any graduate could pass the Lockheed electronics tech placement exam (keep in mind that the closest Lockheed plant was 250 miles away in Silicon Valley). The VPI finally had enough and told the Dean of the Division and the Department Head to fix it or else. So the faculty formed a subcommittee of one (the junior man) and directed that he research the problem and bring back a proposal. Which he did.
The research revealed that within the local community there existed three significant pockets of ET employment---PC and network support, wireless communications, and industrial controls. So, the junior man visited the industry clusters, documented what he heard and saw, developed a revised curriculum proposal (very different from the old one), presented his findings and was chewed up by the senior faculty for proposing to dumb down the program. Needless to say, the department vote went 2 to 1 in opposition to change.
In the spring of that year, the VPI transfered the junior man to CAD/drafting, removed ET from the Fall schedule, and recommended to the President of the school that the two senior faculty be riffed. And so they were.
39 months later, a new ET program arose out of the dust focused on PC and network support, wireless systems, and industrial controls. Jobs appeared, students appeared, equipment appeared, and one full time faculty and about 6 part-timers are fat and happy. As is the industry they serve.
The name of the school and the individuals involved are not mentioned for obvious reasons.
This story could have ended two paragraphs back with a transfered faculty member, two guys being riffed, and a closed program. Only because the college had a strong committment to their local community did the story end on a positive note (except for the folks who were riffed).
How many of you remember the tubes vs transistors battle? Need I say more???????
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