Search for: All records

The 2012 President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report “Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science,Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics” indicated that addressing the retention problem in the first two years of college is the most promising and cost-effective strategy to produce the STEM professionals needed in order to retain US historical preeminence in science and technology. The California Community College System, with its 112 community colleges and 71 off-campus centers enrolling approximately 2.3 million students (roughly a third of all US community college students) is in a prime position to grow the future STEM workforce.However, in the face of shrinking resources and increasing costs and other barriers, an effective approach is needed in order to capitalize on this opportunity. One prong in this approach is to more fully exploit modern technological capabilities to reduce costs, broaden access, and improve educational productivity. This paper presents preliminary results of a collaborative project, Creating Alternative Learning Strategies for Transfer Engineering Programs (CALSTEP), which aims to strengthen community college engineering programs using distance education and other alternative delivery strategies that will enable small-to-medium community college engineering programs to provide their students access to lower-division engineering courses needed to be competitive for transfer to four-year engineering programs. Funded by a three-year grant through the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (NSF IUSE) program, CALSTEP will leverage existing educational resources and develop new ones for online lecture courses, as well as core engineering laboratory courses that are delivered either completely online, or with limited face-to-face interactions. The initial areas of focus for laboratory course development are: Introduction to Engineering, Engineering Graphics, Materials Science, and Circuit Analysis. CALSTEP will also develop alternative models of flipped classroom instruction to improve student success and enhance student access to engineering courses that otherwise could not be supported in traditional delivery modes due to low enrollment. The project will iteratively evaluate and refine the curriculum over the three-year grant period, as well as train other community college engineering faculty in the effective use of the curriculum and resources developed.