Guess I am getting lazy or distracted and haven't been as consciencious about posting here. It is a matter of being busy more than anything. I still haven't run out of things to say.
Anyway, I wanted to comment more on the accusation that by changing the AAS electronics curriculum to more of systems approach, we are dumbing down the curriculum. That could not be further from the truth. Yet that is what the general opinion is. I hope to change that here.
As some of you know, there is an unofficial movement afoot in community colleges to revise the traditional electronic courses and curricula to bring it more in line with what employers want these days and what technology has changed over the years. Most schools are still stuck with curricula that were designed in the 1970s and 1980s to educate engineering technicians. Since those positions have virtually disappeared from industry, most programs are simply graduating students for jobs no longer available.
While there are plenty of good technician level jobs around, these are very few engineering tech positions in the electronics industry. Most of the better jobs are for techs in industries and businesses who use electronic equipment. They mostly involve troubleshooting, maintenance, installation, repair, and calibration. There are also some manufacturing jobs where the job is more related to test and measurement to specs or standards. What most of these jobs have in common is that the work is more at a higher level than just troubleshooting and repair at the component level. With the economics of electronics being such that it is, it is far more economical of both time and money to replace electronic equipment rather than repair it. It gets failed systems and facilities up and running faster thereby reducing downtime and saving money in the processes where the equipment is used. And it is cheaper to do it this way.
The big problem is that most AAS degree programs are still stuck in the mode where extensive circuit analysis and design is the focus. Perhaps at one time this was appropriate to teach, but today it is mostly irrelevant. As a result there is a movement to shift the curriculum to a more systems level approach that de-emphasizes component level circuit analysis and design. Instead, it looks at electronics at a higher level where it is taught more with block diagrams and signal flow analysis and troubleshooting, test and measurement is the emphasis. Few schools have accomplished this so in the meantime, curricula are skewed and students do not learn electronics as it is today. They are continuing to learn what is becoming the history of electronics. It is time for a change.
One of the big complaints of this approach is that instructors feel that curricula is being "dumbed down". By removing the advanced analysis and design techniques still routinely taught, the program is certainly less analytical but more in line with the knowledge required for present and new jobs. Here are a couple of good examples based on recommendations on how to revise the curriculum:
1. Remove advanced circuit techniques like mesh and nodal analysis. Technicians rarely used these techniques anyway, but they are still taught in many schools. Why? Even engineers rarely use them these days and if they need to they resort to circuit simulation software that does the calculations faster and with fewer errors. Why use up valuable course time with something never used and that drives students away because of the math?
2. Reduce BJT coverage. Who needs to know ten ways to bias bipolar transistor circuits? Certainly not the modern tech. All that BJT circuit coverage is virtually worthless. Yes, a tech needs to know how a BJT works and that bias is needed but that is about it. Today it is a MOSFET world. Over 90% of all circuits, both discrete and integrated, use MOSFETs. Yet, MOSFETs are barely covered in most courses today. And that coverage includes resistor biasing that is never used. MOSFETs are biased by active loads, current sources and sinks made with other MOSFETs not resistors.
3. Eliminate or reduce Karnaugh map coverage. Name one tech or even engineer who uses Karnaugh maps today? Almost none and those who do are probably engineers educated 30 years ago. This is a design technique anyway and techs do not design. A waste of time in today's digital world where everything is either an embedded processor or some PLD like an FPGA. You deal with all of these via software. Why waste time on Karnaugh maps?
These are only a few examples of how we are clogging up the curriculum with all the old methods that are no longer widely used. Why not make way for new material that better fits the jobs? Yet, when instructors are presented with the idea that these topics are no longer necessary, they balk. They say that taking these things out is just a way of dumbing down the curriculum, yet in reality it is not.
Why have instructors continued to fight to keep these obsolete topics? Here are a few reasons.
1. Instructors forget that huge advances have been made in semiconductor technology such that almost everything in now in IC form, even complete systems on a chip. Only a small cadre of engineers actually design these using sophisticated software. Other engineers design with and use the chips. It is rarely necessary to know design techniques today. Technicians do not design. You cannot get to the circuits inside a chip anyway, so what techs work with is inputs, outputs and power. Rarely do techs have to find a bad resistor. It is mainly a bad IC if anything.
2. Most instructors are EE graduates who learned all the old methods 20, 30 or more years ago. There is a tendency to believe that one needs to teach it the way you learned it. So that is what is done.
3. Most EEs have never worked as technicians so have little real knowledge of what techs actually need to know and do on the job. They infer, in most cases incorrectly.
4. Most instructor EEs still try to make engineers out of techs. As a result they try to teach "engineering lite" in AAS programs.
5, Instructor still feel that a heavy math approach is best. Yes, algebra is still essential. And maybe even a little trig. But who needs calculus? Certainly not techs. And ask any current engineer how much calculus he or she uses? Virtually none. Math makes programs harder thus driving students away. That is the opposite of what we should be doing.
Any changes that deviate from the old ways make the average EEs instructor feel that the program is "going to hell in a handbasket", to coin a phrase. Water it down. Dilute it. Make it easier. That is the impression of changing to a more systems level approach that is more focused on troubleshooting, test, measurement, calibration, and repair. Why do so many instructors fight this change when it is more appropriate for today? Instructors hate to change. It creates the need to learn new material. It changes their lecture notes. And they feel vulnerable because they are unfamiliar with the new topics and approaches. Let's face it, most community college instructors are way out of date technically. Not all, for sure, but I bet a majority are. They have not kept up. They still use TTL logic which is no longer used to implement digital equipment. They ignore communications and wireless although the whole wireless segment of electronics has become the largest segment and currently dominates in terms of widespread usage and industry revenue and profits. Frankly, it is appalling.
What instructors need to do is realize that changing the curriculum is a good thing, especially for students, graduates and the employers. Didn't schools eventually drop vacuum tubes from the curriculum? It is time to drop other just as dated topics and add the new ones that matter. It is not a case of dumbing down the curriculum, it is adjusting it to fit the modern world. The curriculum is not worse, it is just different but a better fit to reality. The curriculum is not watered down, it is just different and certainly more relevant.
Such changes should make the programs more attractive to students and employers and that in turn could boost enrollment levels to prevent program closure that has become a common problem today in many colleges.
It is time to face up to the changes and get a better attitude about them and just do it.
Lou Frenzel
