Early in 2020, I wrote about my experiences of moving to online learning: learning to use new tools, changing the way I taught, and dealing with the challenges of remote assessment. Sitting, unmentioned in the background, was the fact that the faculty where I teach had already agreed to revamp our electrical engineering curriculum, which directs the lives of students during three of their four years here. This raised a rather critical question: do we stick with the old in these trying times, or forge ahead with something new? In the end, we decided that we would press on with the new.
Then, just to add to the confusion, management decided that we should have two student intakes: one in August/September (the traditional starting time for new students), and one in February. This meant that, if we were fast enough, we could trial the new curriculum on a small group of students that started in February, rather than jumping in the deep end in September. After a lot of work, and with much material still to be developed, we think we are ready to roll.
One of the best parts of developing the new curriculum has been the criticism and feedback we’ve had from colleagues, students, and alumni. Now, with a month to go before we’ll be using the new curriculum, I want to open it up to critique by you, the Ars readers. I’m ready to be the Christmas roast.
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