Retention through a coordinated spiral curriculum

Abstract

The Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) Program of Purdue University at West Lafayette, Indiana implemented significant curriculum change in the fall of 1996. The focus of the change was to produce a relevant coordinated curriculum to optimize the students' learning process and provide a curriculum path that retained qualified students rather than filtering them out. This paper describes the characteristics of the innovations introduced, the successful retention outcomes achieved as a result of these changes, and a national textbook series that was generated from this spiral curriculum.