California Regional Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technological Education (CREATE) Center for Information & Manufacturing Technologies

College Of The Canyons, Santa Clarita CA

Investigators

Abstract

The CREATE Center is a joint effort between seven community colleges, five universities, and over fifty employers in a regional approach to educate the workforce in new technological advances in a wide range of high demand information and manufacturing technologies. The consortium members serve a large portion of coastal and central California of over 9,000 square miles, representing a population of over one million. Two previous NSF-ATE projects have educated over 4,000 students, developed and implemented 30 new degree programs and 105 new courses, and facilitated more than a million dollars in additional funding through innovative industry and college partnerships. The goals of the Center are: 1. Increase pools of trained teachers for both Information Technology and Manufacturing Technology. An award winning training program (Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence) at College of the Canyons has been adapted to a three-year model to train part-time teachers from industry to be pedagogically strong and adept classroom teachers. 2. Increase feeder programs at the high school level. Summer hands-on workshops for high school faculty and academic year mentoring give high school faculty easy to use electronics kits/modules to incorporate back at their schools. 3. Increase Bachelor's level transfer programs that both articulate and are accessible with the new technology Associate degree programs. Five universities are working with CREATE to not only develop strong articulation between all the programs, but to also begin to offer BS programs on-site at the community college campus, a University Center concept already successfully pilot tested at College of the Canyons and now at Allan Hancock College. 4. Create an organized system for developing, documenting (through student portfolio), and implementing work site internship experiences for both Information Technology and Manufacturing Technology. 5. Develop, adapt, and implement regionally programs in network security, wireless and telecommunications technologies and more problem-based, modularized manufacturing technology curricula and standardization 6. Evaluate and contrast the learning, workplace competencies, and pass rate in industry certification programs of students who complete technical certifications in on-line (learner-centered vs. traditional) vs. in-class formats. 7. Implement a model evaluation that is going to follow both past and future students as they enter and participate in the workplace and/or transfer to measure longitudinally the success of the educational experience for all stakeholders, including colleges, students, and employers. The CREATE Center colleges and their partners act as demonstration sites for curricula implementation, regional meetings, teacher training, and continue to foster the consortium partnerships to deliver the best set of skilled technicians for the region. All curricula and material developed both in technical and teacher training is available to any college who would like to adapt them to their needs. Dissemination includes conference presentations, publications, and center web site.