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1. Enabling K-14 Educators in Developing and Deploying Advanced Manufacturing Curricula

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47255  

   Sarder, MD; Mayyas, Mohammad; Abouheaf, Mohammed; Kremer, Gül (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   Manufacturing is undergoing rapid changes due to the demands of product complexity and variety, and therefore factories are demanded to become smarter and more efficient. This transformation is known as advanced manufacturing and will require a new generation of skilled employees. There is a huge lack of qualified personnel in advanced manufacturing stemming from a lack of student interest compounded with a lack of experienced teachers who usually motivate students. This paper describes the findings of an NSF RET project at an US university that successfully addresses the common need to produce STEM graduates in the advanced manufacturing area. We recruited fifteen high school and community college STEM educators for a six-week immersive summer research experience in the state-of-the-art robotics laboratory. At the end of their research workshop, they developed customized hands-on advanced manufacturing curricula for their students. This project produced fifteen competent high school and community college educators, who are capable of blending research with educational activities at their institutions, motivating students for STEM degrees, and building long-term collaborative partnerships in the region. This paper will share some of their successful research projects, how they translated their research into actionable curriculum modules, and some lessons learned from implementations. This paper will also explain the evaluation process and share the results. In view of the pre-survey and post-survey data analyses, it can be concluded that educator participants of the program increased their knowledge and research experiences at very high-quality research facilities and under expert guidance. 

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2. Resources and Partnerships in Community College Manufacturing Technology Programs

   https://doi.org/10.1557/adv.2018.75  

   Wosczyna-Birch, Karen (January 2018, MRS Advances)

   ABSTRACT The Connecticut (CT) State Colleges and Universities’ College of Technology (COT) and its Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing (RCNGM), a National Science Foundation (NSF) Center of Excellence, educate manufacturing technicians with necessary skills as needed by the manufacturing industry. The COT-RCNGM continuously broadens its partnerships with other community colleges, high schools and industry in New England and at the national and international levels to provide support and expertise to both students and educators in advanced manufacturing programs. The COT was founded in 1995 through state legislation to create and implement seamless pathways in engineering and technology. This system-wide collaboration of all twelve CT public community colleges, including seven state-of-the-art Advanced Manufacturing Technology Centers (AMTC) at CT’s community colleges; eight public and private universities; technical high and comprehensive high schools; and representatives from industry, including the CT Business & Industry Association (CBIA) which represents 10,000 companies. The pathways have multiple points of entry and exit for job placement and stackable credentials for degree completion, including national certifications that have increased enrollments and created program stability. The COT is led by the Site Coordinators Council that meets monthly and consists of faculty and deans from all COT educational partners and representatives from industry and government. The Council identifies and reviews new programs, concentrations, and certificates based on industry needs and creates seamless articulated pathways. Final approval is often completed within three months for immediate implementation, allowing a timely response to workforce needs. The COT-RCNGM partners with CBIA to conduct a biannual survey of manufacturing workforce needs in CT. Educators use the survey to identify curricular needs and support funding proposals for educational programs. Asnuntuck Community College, the original AMTC, was able to use industry data from the survey to help create new programs. The RCNGM partners with other NSF grants and entities such as the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). The COT-RCNGM produced DVDs profiling students who have completed COT programs and work in CT manufacturing companies. The Manufacture Your Future 2.0 and the You Belong: Women in Manufacturing DVDs are distributed nationally to increase knowledge of career opportunities in manufacturing. Finally, the COT-RCNGM organizes the Greater Hartford Mini Maker Faire that brings together community members of all ages and backgrounds to share projects that promote interest in STEM fields. Participation in the Maker Movement led to involvement in a national network of Maker Faire organizers including a meeting at the White House where one organizer from each state was invited to attend and discuss the national impact of Makers. 

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3. Transforming Industry towards Smart Manufacturing in the United States

   Arnold, Ryan; Fidan, Ismail; Tantawi, Khalid (October 2018, National NSF-ATE Conference)

   The necessity for educational programs in advanced manufacturing became prominent during the economic crisis in 2007 when the demand of industrial plants was for already trained highly-skilled laborers. To respond to this demand, many advanced manufacturing educational pro-grams, such as mechatronics, were developed in community and technical colleges. Since it was officially defined in the United States Congress in 2015, Smart Manufacturing (SM) has increasingly been under the spotlight. However, current efforts in deploying SM technologies in the US do not provide a workforce trained to utilize and perform SM technologies and techniques. Graduates of mechatronics and other advanced manufacturing programs remain mostly unaware of the technologies of Smart Manufacturing, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), Industry 4.0 standards, and the capacity and range of applications of additive manufacturing and high-precision subtractive manufacturing technologies from tooling to end-user products. The programs currently available do not provide workforce training on SM technologies that target community and technical colleges, which supply a significant percentage of the industrial workforce. In the project Smart Manufacturing for America’s Revolutionizing Technological Transformation (SMART2), this gap in workforce training is met by providing the needed training to career technical education (CTE) and STEM educators in mechatronics and engineering technology. This project is a collaborative effort among three institutions and provides professional training for faculty of advanced manufacturing education programs and an online knowledge-base platform for educators and manufacturers, as well as on-ground training work-shops and educational modules. 

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4. Board 417: Understanding the Implementation of the STEM-ID Curricula in Middle School Engineering Classrooms (Fundamental)

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47006  

   Gale, Jessica; Alemdar, Meltem; Moore, Roxanne (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   Despite recent progress in the adoption of engineering at the K-12 level, the scarcity of high-quality engineering curricula remains a challenge. With support from a previous NSF grant, our research team iteratively developed the three-year middle school engineering curricula, STEM-ID. Through a series of contextualized challenges, the 18-week STEM-ID curricula incorporate foundational mathematics and science skills and practices and advanced manufacturing tools such as computer aided design (CAD) and 3D printing, while introducing engineering concepts like pneumatics, aeronautics, and robotics. Our current project, supported by an NSF DRK-12 grant, seeks to examine the effectiveness of STEM-ID when implemented in diverse schools within a large school district in the southeastern United States. This paper will present early findings of the project’s implementation research conducted over two school years with a total of ten engineering teachers in nine schools. Guided by the Innovation Implementation framework (Century & Cassata, 2014), our implementation research triangulates observation, interview, and survey data to describe overall implementation of STEM-ID as well as implementation of six critical components of the curricula: engaging students in the engineering design process (EDP), math-science integration, collaborative group work, contextualized challenges, utilization of advanced manufacturing technology, and utilization of curriculum materials. Implementation data provide clear evidence that each of the critical components of STEM-ID were evident as the curricula were enacted in participating schools. Our data indicate strong implementation of four critical components (utilization of materials, math-science integration, collaborative group work, and contextualized challenges) across teachers. Engaging students in the EDP and advanced-manufacturing technology were implemented, to varying degrees, by all but two teachers. As expected, implementation of critical components mirrored overall implementation patterns, with teachers who completed more of the curricula tending to implement the critical components more fully than those who did not complete the curricula. In addition to tracking implementation of critical components, the project is also interested in understanding contextual factors that influence enactment of the curricula, including characteristics of the STEM-ID curricula, teachers, and organizations (school and district). Interview and observation data suggest a number of teacher characteristics that may account for variations in implementation including teachers’ organization and time management skills, self-efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Notably, prior teaching experience did not consistently translate into higher completion rates, emphasizing the need for targeted support regardless of teachers' backgrounds. This research contributes valuable insights into the challenges and successes of implementing engineering curricula in diverse educational settings. 

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5. Introducing the NSF-ATE InnovATEBIO National Biotechnology Education Center

   Smith T, Bock H (August 2020, Journal of biomolecular techniques)

   Community colleges play a vital role in preparing the highly skilled technical workforce needed to support the biotechnology industry. Community colleges offer students hands-on practical experience, certificates, and technical degrees. Students include high-school graduates, individuals changing careers, college graduates, and even PhD holders. As these colleges support the many facets of the biotechnology industry, their laboratories are equipped to teach modern techniques, including DNA sequencing, mass spectrometry, microscopy, chromatography, immunoassays, and bioinformatics. Many programs are also developing education skill standards and curriculum to support the latest biotechnology manufacturing that includes CRISPR-based gene therapies, CAR-T, immuno-therapeutics, and patient derived tissues. Some programs have established contract service organizations and business incubators to catalyze regional economic development and provide internships for students entering the workforce. These college-run organizations share many similarities with ABRF core facilities. Over the last 20+ years, community college biotechnology programs have come together to share experiences and learning through the Bio-Link network. Bio-Link was funded by the NSF-ATE (National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education) program until the fall of 2018. In the fall of 2019, InnovATEBIO, a new national center for biotechnology education, was initiated through a five-year NSF-ATE award. InnovATEBIO will build on the Bio-Link foundation to further advance connections between high schools, community colleges, and the biotechnology industry to increase the number of highly trained biotechnology technicians in the United States. InnovATEBIO will support activities designed to increase authentic research and work-based experiences and seeks to develop collaborations with ABRF members supporting course development and partner on projects that could be funded by NSF or others. 

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