Here is my wish list for 2007. These are the things I think that would improve electronic technology education, help increase enrollments, and improve relevancy to industry.
1. A more responsive faculty.
I wish that faculty were more positive about change and willing to make the changes needed to update the curriculum and improve course coverage with the latest technology. Most faculty react rather than act on their own initiative. They tend to wait to see what is happening and what is needed but then do little or nothing. If faculty could be more motivated to make improvements on an on-going basis there would be less need to force such changes. In fact, changes should come from faculty, not the administration. But with a "what's in it for me" attitude, faculty just doesn't want to bother. I just wish faculty would be more willing to learn new things and to actually practice the engineering they learned in school.
2. Fund continuing education.
Most colleges require a specific amount of education for hiring and most accredit bodies ask that faculty to get continuing education. But despite the big emphasis on educational requirements, colleges are hypocritical and simply fail to fund continuing education whether it is a higher degree or even a conference or seminar. Education is expensive and faculty cannot be required to totally fund this themselves. In a field like electronics, it is critical to recognize how fast things change and how continuing education is not only fun but essential to maintaining faculty competence and curriculum currency. Such activities like conferences and seminars can provide at least some of the much needed incentive and motivation to faculty. This lack of continuing education funding is one of the major reasons for the condition of most electronics departments today. Wake up you administrators.
3. Up to date textbooks.
Publishers of technology texts do splendid work but the books they produce are all virtual clones of one another. If one author adds a feature, all the other publishers follow suit to stay competitive. All these books look alike. Competitiveness helps of course but the books are still dated. They omit so much of the latest circuitry and applications while perpetuating the old circuits and methods. Since most professors follow the text to implement their courses, no wonder the courses and curriculum are out of date. The problem can be traced to the professors who write the books. Their knowledge and experience are dated. Most authors are not in regular touch with industry, trends and the latest developments and practices. Publishers should vet authors better and add industry reviewers that know what's really going on and what's important to cover.
That's not too much to ask is it?
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
How I Updated a Traditional Course
It has been a while since I have posted any thing new. It was a busy last quarter.
I did teach last semester and did my best to update the course as much as possible. My school, unlike so many others, is at least trying to bring the curriculum and the courses kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The main opponents are....you guessed it....you guys. The instructors and professors just hate to change. This is especially true of the older guys who are truly living in the past and in denial. Most of them still think that things are the same now as they were when they were working in industry. At my college, most of those guys haven't worked in industry since the late 70s or early 80s. That is 20 to 30 years which in the field of electronics is many generations.
Anyway, we are lucky to have a few younger guys (30s and 40s) who recognize the problem and are trying to gradually morph the curriculum and the courses into something that industry will recognize as "modern". One of the first revisions was to merge DC and AC into one course. There was lots of grumbling about this but it has happened and all seems well. Taking out all that advanced mathematical analysis and design didn't hurt anything and it turns out and now more students are getting through these courses than before. I took the next course in the sequence which we call Solid State Devices and revised it this past semester. This is the course where the student learns semiconductor operation and application like diodes and transistors. It covers basic linear circuits. And since the advanced linear course we used to have was dropped from the curriculum we added all of the op amp and other advanced linear coverage to this course. So the project was one of having to take some stuff out to make room for the new stuff. And I wanted to take a more systems/IC approach than the previous discrete component circuit approach of the past. Furthermore there was lots of new technology to cover that was not being addressed. The whole project turned out to be tougher than I thought. I won't go into the nitty gritty but here is a summary of what I did.
First, I severely cut the bipolar transistor coverage. Yes, these devices are still widely used, but if you work in the real world you already know that over 90% of all transistors, discrete and integrated are MOSFETs. And most of those are inside ICs where you cannot get at them. Bipolars are still used in many linear circuits, mainly ICs, and find their way into many RF and microwave circuits. SiGe and HBTs are very common but I bet none of you even mention them much less cover them in detail. I at least mentioned them.
I toyed with the idea of teaching MOSFETs before BJTs but gave up on that as all the text books still do it the old fashion way, that is give you 15 chapters on 1001 ways to bias a BJT and only one chapter on MOSFETs. Bass ackwards from the real world. I suppose that eventually some author will write a text with MOSFETs first but I suspect no one would buy it because it is so "radiacal". Call me cynical.
I did teach the basic BJT common emitter amplifier but greatly reduced the time I spent on it. Even though you would be hard pressed to find any such circuit in the real world today, most instructors hammer the analysis home for months. Yet few if any students ever need that. I kept more of that analysis than I thought I would but it was just because several local employers have a queston on common emitter amplifiers in their technician hiring exam.
Incidentally, you may want to go get some of the tech hiring exams given by local employers just to see what they look for. I did that not too long ago and got three of them. I had a really good laugh. These exams are as dated if not more so than the curricula and textbooks. And yes, most of them did have a question about a BJT common emitter stage. One of the exams actually had a vacuum tube RC phase shift oscillator on it. I kid you not. Anyway, at least you will know what you need to teach your students to pass the exams. At least teach the minimum and not the full blown version.
With lots of extra time I picked up I covered more IC amplifiers like op amps, power amps, instrument amps, and so on. I added class D switching amps which are everywhere today.
I also expanded the power supply coverage. First I added Schottky diodes that most texts do not cover. They are used in just abut 100% of all power supplies today yet, most books and courses still do not cover them. I added switching regulator coverage, DC-DC converters, inverters and UPS, and the more common bus oriented power supplies. And of course power management chips which are inside almost everything today. As usual, the text did not cover most of this stuff. We use the latest (2006) PH text by Paynter but it contains nothing about the most widely used power supply circuits and equipment. In case you are interested, over 80% of all power supplies are of the switching variety yet coverage is slim to none in books or courses. I used the Work-Ready Electronic online modules for the course materials. (www.work-readyelectronics.org) I used the Switching Amps, Switching Power Supplies, Contemporaty Power Supplies and MOSFET modules. Look those up as they are great for your own continuing education and provide online self instruction the students can use. They give you a fast way to update a course.
Anyway, I documented the course content and changes for the rest of the faculty but it remains to be seen whether others will pick this up. At least my students got a more accurate picture of the circuits and applications of today than the history of electronics that so many other instructors still pontificate on.
Now if only the textbook publishers would wise up and do a real update on the books. Yet the people who write the books are the very instructors who are not technologically on top of it, so to speak. Hope we are not doomed to suffer with that problem for ever. Any ideas for a solution?
Happy New Year.
I did teach last semester and did my best to update the course as much as possible. My school, unlike so many others, is at least trying to bring the curriculum and the courses kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The main opponents are....you guessed it....you guys. The instructors and professors just hate to change. This is especially true of the older guys who are truly living in the past and in denial. Most of them still think that things are the same now as they were when they were working in industry. At my college, most of those guys haven't worked in industry since the late 70s or early 80s. That is 20 to 30 years which in the field of electronics is many generations.
Anyway, we are lucky to have a few younger guys (30s and 40s) who recognize the problem and are trying to gradually morph the curriculum and the courses into something that industry will recognize as "modern". One of the first revisions was to merge DC and AC into one course. There was lots of grumbling about this but it has happened and all seems well. Taking out all that advanced mathematical analysis and design didn't hurt anything and it turns out and now more students are getting through these courses than before. I took the next course in the sequence which we call Solid State Devices and revised it this past semester. This is the course where the student learns semiconductor operation and application like diodes and transistors. It covers basic linear circuits. And since the advanced linear course we used to have was dropped from the curriculum we added all of the op amp and other advanced linear coverage to this course. So the project was one of having to take some stuff out to make room for the new stuff. And I wanted to take a more systems/IC approach than the previous discrete component circuit approach of the past. Furthermore there was lots of new technology to cover that was not being addressed. The whole project turned out to be tougher than I thought. I won't go into the nitty gritty but here is a summary of what I did.
First, I severely cut the bipolar transistor coverage. Yes, these devices are still widely used, but if you work in the real world you already know that over 90% of all transistors, discrete and integrated are MOSFETs. And most of those are inside ICs where you cannot get at them. Bipolars are still used in many linear circuits, mainly ICs, and find their way into many RF and microwave circuits. SiGe and HBTs are very common but I bet none of you even mention them much less cover them in detail. I at least mentioned them.
I toyed with the idea of teaching MOSFETs before BJTs but gave up on that as all the text books still do it the old fashion way, that is give you 15 chapters on 1001 ways to bias a BJT and only one chapter on MOSFETs. Bass ackwards from the real world. I suppose that eventually some author will write a text with MOSFETs first but I suspect no one would buy it because it is so "radiacal". Call me cynical.
I did teach the basic BJT common emitter amplifier but greatly reduced the time I spent on it. Even though you would be hard pressed to find any such circuit in the real world today, most instructors hammer the analysis home for months. Yet few if any students ever need that. I kept more of that analysis than I thought I would but it was just because several local employers have a queston on common emitter amplifiers in their technician hiring exam.
Incidentally, you may want to go get some of the tech hiring exams given by local employers just to see what they look for. I did that not too long ago and got three of them. I had a really good laugh. These exams are as dated if not more so than the curricula and textbooks. And yes, most of them did have a question about a BJT common emitter stage. One of the exams actually had a vacuum tube RC phase shift oscillator on it. I kid you not. Anyway, at least you will know what you need to teach your students to pass the exams. At least teach the minimum and not the full blown version.
With lots of extra time I picked up I covered more IC amplifiers like op amps, power amps, instrument amps, and so on. I added class D switching amps which are everywhere today.
I also expanded the power supply coverage. First I added Schottky diodes that most texts do not cover. They are used in just abut 100% of all power supplies today yet, most books and courses still do not cover them. I added switching regulator coverage, DC-DC converters, inverters and UPS, and the more common bus oriented power supplies. And of course power management chips which are inside almost everything today. As usual, the text did not cover most of this stuff. We use the latest (2006) PH text by Paynter but it contains nothing about the most widely used power supply circuits and equipment. In case you are interested, over 80% of all power supplies are of the switching variety yet coverage is slim to none in books or courses. I used the Work-Ready Electronic online modules for the course materials. (www.work-readyelectronics.org) I used the Switching Amps, Switching Power Supplies, Contemporaty Power Supplies and MOSFET modules. Look those up as they are great for your own continuing education and provide online self instruction the students can use. They give you a fast way to update a course.
Anyway, I documented the course content and changes for the rest of the faculty but it remains to be seen whether others will pick this up. At least my students got a more accurate picture of the circuits and applications of today than the history of electronics that so many other instructors still pontificate on.
Now if only the textbook publishers would wise up and do a real update on the books. Yet the people who write the books are the very instructors who are not technologically on top of it, so to speak. Hope we are not doomed to suffer with that problem for ever. Any ideas for a solution?
Happy New Year.
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