An all too familiar letter came across the Engineering Technology (ETD) listserv the other day:

‘Declining enrollment in electronics programs for a decade.  Has anyone had success in turning the trend around, what suggestions do they have.’

Maybe you have seen this letter.  Maybe you were about to write a similar letter.  Below is my reply to every letter of this nature:

I would like to let you know about an ATE NSF funded Project: A Systems View of Electronics for 2010, for which I am the project manager. This project is aimed at addressing this downward spiral of low enrollments in current legacy electronics programs. Please see www.esyst.org for more information and to see the resources the project has developed to assist. The aim of the project has been to evaluate the legacy electronics programs; in particular the six core courses: DC/AC, Solid State Fundamentals, Digital Fundamentals, Microprocessors (microcontrollers), Data Acquisition and Measurements, and Communications, to see what topics were being taught in each one and then recommend and develop resources to change each course to a systems view. These six courses make up the core of most legacy electronics curriculums. We anticipate higher enrollment and retention rates for students as the topics covered are up-to-date, apply to what an electronics technician will do in the real world, and starting with an electronics systems and drilling down into the topics will help students make the connections.
 
What we did next was to evaluate what electronics technicians do in the real world today after leaving our programs. What we found was most electronics technicians find employment working on electronics systems in a variety of technology fields from semiconductor manufacturing systems to hamburger fryers linked via the internet to corporate headquarters, to maintaining locomotives and other control based systems. All of these are examples of electronics systems which are rarely covered in our legacy programs and the systems mentality is not covered as we focus on devices, components, and circuit design and analysis. The systems approach is taking electronics education and starting from a big picture or systems view and then drilling down into the topics we traditionally teach. Students need to see where the topics they are about to study fit in the picture and then when they perform the lab activities or research assignments, they will know where they are applied. Textbooks were also evaluated and found to be nearly all the same in coverage of the topics for each of the six courses.
 
What eSyst has is a set of systems resources developed by a team of electronics faculty and industry consultants for each of the six courses. The heart of the project is the Implementation Guide which directs a faculty through the usage of the developed systems resources and also through suggestions on what current course topics need to be enhanced, reduced, eliminated, or new systems topics to be added. This is the biggest challenge the faculty that reviewed the project stated they would have in going to the systems approach. Where do  I start? What do I change or add…? We have also partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in developing a remote electronics system lab activity that faculty and students can access via the Internet free of charge. See the Student page on the www.esyst.org website for access to this iLabs activity.
 
In our dissemination activities the project has completed six webinars on the project, and each of these can be viewed at www.matecnetworks.org. Use the keyword search term: Webinars eSyst. MATEC NetWorks is a National Digital Library funded by the NSF which contains over 1,350 online resources that have been peer reviewed as classroom ready resources. We have over a hundred resources in electronics technology topics.
 
The two resources below have also started being adopted by electronics and other technology programs which have seen remarkable increases in student enrollments and retention:
 
Webinar:  Recruitment Tips  
Webinar:  Making Your Program Flexible:  Open Lab – Self-Paced

A long email response to your request, but hopefully insightful. I would love to talk with you more about your electronics program and how the eSyst Project or MATEC could possibly assist you, your program, or your students in the future. Please contact me at any time that is convenient for you.
Kind regards,

Tom McGlew

If you would like for more information about the Engineering Technology listserv or  to join.