New Economy Technician: A Dissemination Project of MATEC

Maricopa County Community College District, Tempe AZ

Investigators

Abstract

The Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC) is transitioning to serve as the NSF's leading dissemination center for skill standards, ideas, materials, contacts, and mentoring in the field of semiconductor industry education. Since 1996 MATEC has collaborated with industry and educators to increase the number of semiconductor manufacturing technology (SMT) programs from 32 to 80; create the industry's first national skill standards; and develop and distribute 44 modules of learning materials through a unique electronic delivery system. As a dissemination center, MATEC's goals are 1) to motivate at least 50 percent of the nation's SMT faculty to adopt the MATEC learning system by 2005, in part by developing an industry-accepted ChipReady job-screening assessment; and 2) to broadcast best practices and new ideas among SMT faculty nationwide. MATEC continues to use the dissemination vehicles developed in the last six years (adopter and topic workshops, Web site, quarterly print newsletter and e-mail bulletins, conference attendance, faculty development, and sponsorship of the industry's most influential annual workforce development conference). MATEC is also developing five new dissemination vehicles (Learning Invention Lab, lesson plan recognition, exemplary instructor video, collaboration with Arizona State University East, collaboration with industry workforce developers).