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1. How to Support Career Technical Instructors to Develop Students' Professional Skills: Research Brief

   Lundh, P; Yarnall, L; Smith, E; Krishnamachari, A; Griffiths, R (July 2024, NA)

   NA (Ed.)

   Project GOALS (Greater Opportunities to Advance Lifelong Success), an NSF Advanced Technological Education targeted research project, brought together researchers and community college educators from 2020 through 2024 to co-develop, test, package, and distribute resources for developing technicians' professional skills. Through this work, the team discovered the barriers that hinder both instructors and students from connecting around professional skills development. To address these barriers, the Project GOALS team developed an instructional framework grounded in research that integrates focused low-stakes activities into classes as students work toward their technical certificates. Based on our research, we believe Project GOALS provides ways for students to students' career readiness. In this research brief, the team describes how the Project GOALS co-development collaboration revealed the supports that technical instructors need to build students' professional awareness and reflection habits. Through qualitative analysis, Project GOALS researchers discovered the challenges that prevent many instructors from sharing their honest assessments of students' professional skills. The brief describes findings and recommends ways that community colleges can provide the assistance and resources that instructors need to develop students' professional skills. 

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2. Strategically Aligning Curriculum with Future Employer Needs Using the Skill Standards Process

   https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15346683  

   Beheler, Ann; Dempsey, Mark (January 2025, Journal of advanced technological education)

   Whether developing new programs or updating existing programs, educators and their industry partners must effectively – and efficiently – communicate and collaborate to create curricula needed to help graduates meet the needs of the workforce. The “IT Skill Standards 2020 and Beyond” (ITSS) National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project collaborated with over 250 employers across the country to identify and develop future-facing skill standards for the most critical IT job clusters. The Texas Skills Standards Board has recognized and adopted those six standards clusters. The “engine” that powered this work was the Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) model, which provides a structured, repeatable method for engaging employers nationwide to ensure curriculum aligns with workforce needs. To date, over 150 colleges, universities, and projects across 35 states have adopted the BILT model. In 2023 and 2024, the overall skill standards development process – which includes the BILT Model – was taught to faculty and administrators across multiple technical disciplines. Overall, six ITSS Summit workshops were held for over 100 attendees from 44 schools in 21 states. Ten ITSS Summit teams participated in 1:1 mentoring sessions in Spring 2024 with grant staff to support their implementation. Each team pursued customized goals to strengthen their own programs’ relationships with employers and better align the curriculum to workforce needs. Quantitative and qualitative survey data on the impact of the ITSS Summit program demonstrate the value of the ITSS Process and the BILT model of industry engagement. 

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3. Attitudes about Cybersecurity Articulation Agreements and Transfer Students: A Statewide Survey of Faculty and Advisors.

   Payne, B (January 2021, NACADA journal)

   In this study, cybersecurity faculty and academic advisors from community colleges and 4-year universities in the southeast region of the United States completed a survey assessing attitudes about and support for articulation agreements and related transfer policies. Hypothesizing that professional structures shape attitudes and experiences, the researchers conducted an exploratory quantitative study with primarily descriptive analyses. The results reveal differences in attitudes between community college and 4-year stakeholders and between faculty and academic advisors. The results of this study are discussed in relation to faculty and advisor training and communication. 

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4. The impact of a multimodal professional network on developing social capital and research capacity of faculty at historically black colleges and universities

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11464-z  

   Ives, Jillian; Drayton, Brian; Hobbs, Kathryn; Falk, Joni (December 2022, Education and Information Technologies)

   Abstract This qualitative case study examined how a multimodal professional network environment (STEM for all Video Showcase) affected five STEM educational researchers’ capacity to engage in grant funded research at U.S. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Guided by the social capital and professional network literature as a conceptual framework, we analyzed data from surveys, interviews, and online discussion posts. We aimed to understand HBCU-based researchers’ supports and barriers in writing and/or conducting grant funded research in STEM education, and ways in which the multimodal professional network experience supported their research and professional networking, if at all. We found that organizational structures shaped participants’ social capital as well as their grant funded research activities. Further, participating in a multimodal professional network enabled participants to further develop their research capacity and to also expand their collegial networks. We offer recommendations for institutions to support the research endeavors of their faculty and suggest ways in which organizations using or developing professional multimodal networks can enhance faculty research development. 

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5. The Researcher/Practitioner Strategic Partnership: Linking Theory and Practice for Change in Engineering and Computer Science Education.

   Ingram, E.; Litzler, E.; Margherio, C.; Doten-Snitker, K.; and Williams, J. (June 2018, American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   Our NSF funded project—Creating National Leadership Cohorts to Make Academic Change Happen (NSF 1649318)—represents a strategic partnership between researchers and practitioners in the domain of academic change. The principle investigators from the Making Academic Change Happen team from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology provide familiarity with the literature of practical organizational change and package this into action-oriented workshops and ongoing support for teams funded through the REvolutionizing engineering and computer science Departments (RED) program. The PIs from the Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity at the University of Washington provide expertise in social science research in order to investigate how the the RED teams’ change projects unfold and how the teams develop as members of national leadership cohorts for change in engineering and computer science education. Our poster for ASEE 2018 will focus on what we have learned thus far regarding the dynamics of the researcher/practitioner partnership through the RED Participatory Action Research (REDPAR) Project. According to Worrall (2007), good partnerships are “founded on trust, respect, mutual benefit, good communities, and governance structures that allow democratic decision-making, process improvement, and resource sharing.” We have seen these elements emerge through the work of the partnership to create mutual benefits. For example, the researchers have been given an “insider’s” perspective on the practitioners’ approach—their goals, motivations for certain activities, and background information and research. The practitioners’ perspective is useful for the researchers to learn since the practitioners’ familiarity with the organizational change literature has influenced the researchers’ questions and theoretical models. The practitioners’ work with the RED teams has provided insights on the teams, how they are operating, the challenges they face, and aspects of the teams’ work that may not be readily available to the researchers. As a result, the researchers have had increased access to the teams to collect data. The researchers, in turn, have been able to consider how to make their analyses useful and actionable for change-makers, the population that the practitioners are more familiar with. Insights from the researchers provide both immediate and long-term benefits to programming and increased professional impact. The researchers are trained observers, each of whom brings a unique disciplinary perspective to their observations. The richness, depth, and clarity of their observations adds immeasurably to the quality of practitioners’ interactions with the RED teams. The practitioners, for example, have revised workshop content in response to the researchers’ observations, thus ensuring that the workshop content serves the needs of the RED teams. The practitioners also benefit from the joint effort on dissemination, since they can contribute to a variety of dissemination efforts (journal papers, conference presentations, workshops). We plan to share specific examples of the strategic partnership during the poster session. In doing so, we hope to encourage researchers to seek out partnerships with practitioners in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice in engineering and computer science education. 

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