The Evolution Of An Eet Program's Introductory Course In Electricity/Electronics

A new course (EL 110) was developed in 1999 for first-semester students entering our four-year baccalaureate programs in electronic and audio engineering technology. In recent years we had noticed that very few of our entering students had experience with technical aspects of electricity and electronics, and we realized that students found the traditional first-semester DC circuits course both daunting and uninteresting. This phenomenon, and different approaches to addressing the problem, have been reported by others. Our students didn't do well in the fundamental electronics courses (DC and AC circuit analysis, solid-state devices) which are prerequisites for the “fun” courses involving amplifiers, oscillators, filters, etc. Our faculty felt that giving students a "survey" course in first semester to give a broad overview of and an appreciation for the electronics, and moving the DC circuits course into the second semester, would improve retention and motivation. We felt that it was critical to the success of EL 110 that the lab experiences be interesting and enjoyable. An additional benefit to our students is that they get to complete the first math course (college algebra) before taking the DC fundamentals in the second semester.