One of you recently posted a comment here and asked, where are the textbooks and lab equipment for a proposed, revised, updated, more relevant curriculum? GREAT QUESTION!!
The short answer is, there are none. But that needs some explanation.
First, let me say that the publishers are doing a superb job of creating a text and getting it distributed. As a senior VP at one of the three major technology publishers at one time in my life, I can tell you that the process is very professional, detailed and expensive. The books today are excellent with full color and lots of ancillary support materials. Teachers have come to rely on the publishers to do a major part of their job which includes providing exams, overhead presentations, CDs with extra info, software, and even lab manuals. What's not to like?
But there is one hellacious problem. Many if not most of the books are dated. The fundamentals don't change, but they are now out of context. And the fundamentals that are important to jobs and industry today are a bit different. Some of the content is more for engineers than techs and other content just not needed. We need less theory and design and more practical material.
Why are the books like this? For several reasons. Number one, the books are written by the professors who have little recent industry experience. Many professors are stuck in the decade when they stopped their industry careers to enter academia and haven't really kept up to date. Second, the publishers rely on other professors to review the books. These professors also tend not to have the experience or up to date industry knowledge to know when a subject is dated or whether key subject matter has been omitted. Industry reviewers would help, but would really upset things. So what we get is more of the same. I am not saying the books don't get updated, they do. But it is usually too little too late.
A few years ago I did a major research project to determine just how up to date electronic technology texts were. I compared the content of current books to a list of recent topics derived from industry focus and job needs. What I found was disturbing. Huge chunks of modern electronics are completely omitted from some texts or may only be mentioned in passing. The omissions and skew from what industry wants and needs was huge. The result of this research ultimately resulted in an NSF grant for nearly a million dollars to do something about this problem. We are in the third year of that grant which is helping colleges to update their courses where the texts books fail. www.work-readyelectronics.org
The whole issue is not that the publishers aren't sensitive to the problem. Believe me they are. But they are essentially afraid to do anything about it. They are terrified to change something that has been so successful in the past. They are afraid to go too far in updating the books. Why? Because it is you the professor who selects and buys the books. And professors tend to like the status quo. At textbook selection meetings, I have heard teachers argue for keeping the same text even if it is not as up to date strictly because it is too much trouble to change their notes, syllabi, presentation materials, handouts, exams, etc. Great excuse, huh? So the teachers, in effect, tell the publishers what they want and the publishers give them that, even if it is a bit dated and skewed. After, all publishers are in the business of selling books and making a profit. Please your customer, meet your sales projections, and profit. Ah, all is well. But, guess who gets short changed? The student and industry. And in the long run, the school and the professors.
So there are very few books that are really in tune with the real world. Some are close, but not there yet. All of them are from several decades back. What I wonder is when a publisher is going to take a bit of a chance and do something fresh, new, better, different and just what is needed TODAY? With the current low enrollment problem, publishers are hurting. Sales are lower than ever and most are in a hunkered down mode to protect their market share. Revisions are being delayed and some books are being dropped. And few if any new books are in the works.
Since we all rely on the textbooks as the core of our courses and even our own knowledge, we need publishers who are brave enough to give us books more in tune with real needs. It's a chicken and egg thing. Once we get the up to date books, professors will get updated as well as the courses. Which one of the major publishers will be first? McGraw Hill? Prentice Hall? Delmar? Which one has the guts to give us what the teachers need and the students and industry will benefit from? And which of you professors will be brave enough to buy them? Let's all buy books from that first publisher.
3 comments:
There are a few brave publishers out in textbook world. In the early 1990s, Gerold Williams, teaching at Pasadena City College, convinced SRA to pilot a lab manual entitled "Analog Electronics in a Digital World". A textbook was going to follow.
The title speaks for itself. The lab manual was very progressive. Gerold recognized the impact digital systems was going to have on electronics technology and set about to write a lab/text designed to prepare his students for the future. Lots of stuff on how analog makes the digital system work or work better. Nicely done.
I've still got my copy.
Man, did he and SRA take a ton of heat from other publishers and faculty members here in California. Dumbing it down was the standard criticism.
Needless to say, the lab manual was sparcely adopted and no text every showed up.
Bad omen for the future.
Roy Brixen
College of San Mateo
I would be interested in learning what we think should be in the textbooks. How would we organize the material? What would the underlying themes? I am assuming some system or systems might be used as the basis for the texts.
Which topics should be emphasized and which should not?
How are other technologies to be integrated?......
Perhaps we could generate enough interest to get "things" started.
Keith Quigley
Midlands Technical College
I would like to add a couple of thoughts about textbooks. Not only are they out of date but they are also far too expensive. I understand that authors need to make a profit on their time and that publishers need to make a profit. I also understand that with the used book sales on the net that new versions have to be published before the older version can hit the used market. BUT surely there is a better solution, like making the books cheap enough that it isn’t worth the effort to market used books ensuring more royalties and publisher profits. Books do not have to have all the "extras" that often come with the package. I wonder how many teachers actually use all those CDs and film clips that are mostly useless. Another solution may be to publish electronic books where the school or student could purchase download rights and print off or pay for only what they need. I don’t like “pure” ebooks either but downloading music is doing quite well so maybe some form of ebook use/distribution could cut prices, perhaps even raise profits and royalties. It may be a nutty idea but surely there is a high tech solution somewhere.
An example of an excellent nitty-gritty book is the ARRL Handbook. It is well written for the would-be technican and best of all it is written with a realistic use in mind. Which is probably one reason why teachers don't use it. I’m afraid many teachers know only the textbook world and don't know much about the applications.
Like Gerold Williams, I wrote a book some years ago for Howard W. Sams Co. called Television with Basic Electronics. The idea was to teach basic electronics (on a technician level) by using the tv as a vehicle for building student interest and to revolve the e/e theory around. It was arranged in the same order as the repair would take and each section in the tv was studied through a series of lab exercises that related to it. For example in the power supply section there were single concept labs on using meters and the scope, AC and DC power, Ohm's law, resistors, the diode, capacitor, series and parallel circuits, etc. But the most important part was that the topics related to actual circuits and what the student needed to know--at the time he needed to know it...thus he learned about the tv and what made it tick at the same time. The few people who used it loved it...the many who did not, probably didn't even look at it because it used a product. However, in such a book the student sees that he is learning something real! Alas, like Gerold's book it went "bye-bye" with few sales. I fear that any book departing from the norm will not make it because it takes the teacher out of his “comfort” zone. Thanks, you are to be commended for bringing the topic up for comment.
Joe Sloop
Surry Community College
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