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"Have the breadth to understand problems, and the depth to solve them."
- Anonymous
There many possible ways to implement a developmentally-based curriculum. Our departmental reform project has chosen a breadth on top of depth approach [70], illustrated (badly) in the figure below, that combines breadth in the curriculum with depth in individual courses. This approach creates depth of understanding in specific courses as key experiences in a diverse curriculum, and asserts that depth of understanding in a limited number of topics is of equal or greater importance than gaining a broad overview of electrical engineering. Today's students are able to access information on any subject nearly instantaneously, but need to learn how to filter and use information.
A breadth-on-depth approach is robust; students' experience is independent of changes to the curriculum structure, order in which classes are taken, or which faculty member teaches a class. The breadth on top of depth approach is flexible, efficient, and can be easily disseminated for broad impact. Reforming individual courses, rather than the entire curriculum, allows faculty to rapidly respond to emerging knowledge by reformulating the questions the course addresses, and introducing new case studies and projects.
Emphasizing depth allows research to be integrated into the undergraduate curriculum. In fact the research performed by faculty should drive the problems given to undergraduates students. Courses which examine a problem in depth are able to remove legacy material. If knowledge is not used in understanding or solving the problem, it won't be learned in context and shouldn't be taught. This approach also allows faculty to infiltrate outcomes such as teamwork and communication necessary for accreditation into a course without dropping content.
Finally this approach helps alleviate the tedium of teaching material faculty know inside and out. Faculty are able to teach problems they find interesting, rather than concepts dictated by a committee. Becoming re-engaged in the scholarship inherent to teaching is important both for faculty development and, we believe, for mental and emotional health.
We plan to integrate the developmental model into ten individual classes spread across all years of the program. This section discusses how the two goals of this project will be implemented over four years (three project + one year no-cost extension). Tasks identified in the figure below are organized by which of the two project goals they address. Each task lists the PI who will be responsible for managing that aspect of the project.
Organization of curriculum reform identifying schedule, management, and oversight.
The first step in this project will be for Dr. Teague to engage three additional ECEN faculty in this project to review these courses and examine how to streamline the curriculum. The panel will be charged with: reducing number of concepts taught in each course; identifying fundamental questions, technologies, or problems; and examining how a 5%, 10%, and 20% reduction in the number of credit hours would impact the degree. To compensate faculty for their time and encourage participation, a quarter time teaching assistant will be given to each participant. Impartial review will help defuse opposition from recalcitrant faculty not actively involved in curriculum reform, and will bring new faculty into the reform process.
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