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1. Education in a Remote World: Focus on Workforce Readiness

   Delahanty, C.; Genis, V.; Herring, S.; & Timby, T.A (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Bucks County Community College (Bucks) in collaboration with Drexel University (Drexel) is committed to increasing the number of workforce ready engineers and engineering technicians and to creating a blueprint for 2+2 engineering education programs nationally. Recently, educational reform took an unexpected turn to remote teaching due to the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic. Within our NSF ATE grant to enhance our present engineering technology curriculum we modified and enhanced instructional and student engagement methods to assure workforce readiness of our students in a remote world. Curriculum enhancements within the engineering technology (ET) occupational major at Bucks and the B.S. in ET degree program at Drexel, modifications to delivery of workforce development certification programs through the Bucks Center for Workforce Development (CWD), and college-wide student engagement strategies were implemented to assure quality education and student engagement. Modifications to credit courses included asynchronous online courses, synchronous remote courses, and hybrid courses, which combined remote and on campus laboratory instruction. Our CWD implemented hybrid instruction that included necessary resources for students such as tool kits and borrowed laptop computers. In addition, a college wide program called Bucks+ was implemented through the Bucks Business and Innovation Department to increase enrollment, retention, and workforce readiness of students. The Bucks+ program focuses on student engagement through competition within curriculum, and extracurricular endeavors that prepare students for industry. We will share our successes and challenges within our call to action to engage students in a remote world and to enhance their educational experience through innovative instructional techniques. 

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2. Delahanty, C., Herring, S., Timby, T.A., & Genis, V. (2022, August), Innovative Curriculum: Collaboration Between Technician Education and Workforce Development. Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference Content Access, https://peer.asee.org/collections/131

   Delahanty, C.; Herring, S.; Timby, T.A.; & Genis, V. (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference Content Access)

   Bucks County Community College (Bucks) is aware of the growing and urgent need for workforce ready technicians to fill numerous industry positions. Our NSF ATE grant #1902075 entitled, "Increasing the Number of Workforce Ready Engineering Technicians in Southeastern PA” is a collaboration between Bucks credit and non-credit sides of the college, and Drexel University as our four-year partner. This grant focuses on workforce readiness of engineering technicians to prepare them for the workforce of the future. We are accomplishing this by including our Center for Workforce Development (CWD) certifications as additional pathways into our occupational engineering technology (ET) major, enhancing manufacturing experiences within the major, and embedding soft skills training and career exploration throughout our ET program. We have restructured our ET major to make it more cross-curricular to accommodate diverse industry needs, and to require a greater business aspect. Within this restructuring, we have created courses in different modalities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are committed to increasing awareness of STEM education to underrepresented groups through K-12 STEM-related outreach initiatives, and are in the process of establishing a plan to recruit such groups into our technician education programs. In addition to the services already in place at Bucks, development of our recruitment plan includes professional development sessions of faculty and staff, discussion sessions at national conferences, Professional Learning Communities, special convenings of students, and outreach initiatives to school districts with a higher percentage of underrepresented groups. We expect that fulfillment of the goals of this grant will increase the number of engineering technicians in our region, and become a blueprint for community colleges nationwide. 

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3. A Successful 2-week Innovation- and Student Success-Focused Bridge Program for First-Year Students

   Schubert, K.; Delgado Solorzano, X.; Massey, L.; Gattis, C.; Popp, J.; Cao, C.; Carter, T.; Muralidhara, D. (July 2022, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Despite the vital role innovation plays in scientific advancement, opportunities to develop innovation skills remain limited, especially for low-income students. Training in innovation principles and processes are frequently extra-curricular pursuits, such as unpaid internships with start-up organizations, shadowing innovation professionals, or obtaining an additional business degree that covers innovation principles. These pursuits often require financial means or connections in the field – both of which are often unavailable to low-income students. Without an academic route in which STEM degree programs are embedded with innovation instruction and exercises, innovation training will remain out of reach for most low-income students. The bridge program engages students in a specially designed 3-credit hour course where 2-credit hours are dedicated to teaching students about innovation and developing their innovative thinking and behaviors. One-credit hour is devoted to student success strategies and developing feelings of being welcome at the university through guest speakers. Outside of class, bridge students participate in cohort building and mentoring activities. The bridge program included 12 NSF S-STEM students as well as 12 non-STEM students, all of which are participating in the Honors College Path Program which is designed to increase retention of underrepresented students. This allowed multidisciplinary collaboration for diversity of thought. 

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4. Creating Pathways to Industry for Pre-College Students and Two-Year Undergraduates

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55037  

   Moses, Kenie; Lacy, Fred (March 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   Over the last decade, the emergence of technician education has taken center stage at secondary and post-secondary educational institutions through the proliferation of industry needs and employer-partner engagement. Through employer-partner engagement, Southern University at Shreveport, Louisiana (SUSLA), a community college unit within the Southern University and A&M College System, conducted a systematic review, assessment, and revision of its curricula that addressed the needs of industry. SUSLA’s comprehensive assessment, guided by employer-partner input, community college and 4-year university collaborations, and published workforce data, identified a pressing need to develop an Engineering Technology program. To that end, SUSLA developed a 2+2+2 Matriculation Model within the Engineering Technology associate of applied science degree program designed as a gateway to enable early education, persistence to post-secondary credentials of value, and high-quality career outcomes. Programs with similar demographics may be able to use this as a model which aims to do four things: 1) facilitate the early engagement of students decreasing the number of academically underprepared learners entering college, 2) expand postsecondary educational opportunities to improve outcomes fostering economic opportunity 3) increase the enrollment, persistence and graduation of early education and underserved populations in STEM and, 4) facilitate a reduction in time to degree. SUSLA’s 2+2+2 Matriculation Model provides high school students with the opportunity to earn dual-enrollment post-secondary credentials through its certificate of technical offerings in Engineering and Engineering Technology. Additionally, the model facilitates an increase in the participation rate of students in STEM and provides more academic opportunities and career exploration through collaborative industry-academic networks. Furthermore, the model produces workforce-ready technicians which accelerates academic and technical skill attainment and, thereby addresses a) the shortage in moderate to middle-skill jobs that require some college, but less than a bachelor’s degree; and b) the ongoing need for highly skilled STEM graduates to maintain the nation’s competitiveness in productivity and innovation. 

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5. Design & Technology Education: What can we do to Influence Transdisciplinary Undergraduate Learning?

   Strimel, G.; Lucas, D. (October 2023, The 40th International Pupils’ Attitudes Towards Technology Conference Proceedings 2023)

   Transdisciplinary learning can be viewed as the pinnacle of integrated teaching, whereas the acquisition/application of knowledge/skills are driven by compelling socio-scientific problems that demand the transcending of disciplinary boundaries and the blending of diverse viewpoints/practices to develop innovative solutions over time. With a variety of educational transformation initiatives happening at universities, DT programs can help shape the way that undergraduate learning occurs. So how do DT programs leverage their value related to transdisciplinary learning through design/innovation practice to reach new audiences while also sustaining programs that develop teachers? To provide an answer, this poster will highlight a transdisciplinary program, titled Mission Meaning Making (M3), that was developed to provide a new cross-college learning experience for undergraduate students focused on design and innovation. The M3 program has been created to synergize the key strengths of three partnering units/disciplines (DT, anthropology, and business) to prepare undergraduates for addressing contemporary challenges in innovative, and transdisciplinary ways. The poster will provide details/research related to the M3 program and explore how DT can strive to make a broader impact on campuses. 

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