FLATE' Summer Workshop Series a Great Professional Development Opportunity for Florida Educators


FLATE's professional development workshops support the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) goals for advancing technological education emphasizing on hands-on technical training along with development, application, assessment of technology-related curriculum, and strategies for recruitment and retention of students in technology programs. FLATE works with key partners such as the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC), the Florida Association for Career and Technical Education (FACTE), Hillsborough County Public Schools, and the new NSF partnership with College Lake County (Illinois), Anne Arundel Community College (Maryland), and Florida State College at Jacksonville.

From 2005 to 2019, FLATE has provided 47,736 hours of professional development to 36,382 educators and 13,062 workforce, economic and manufacturing personnel in multi-day workshops, presentations, and through online webinars at hundreds of events in Florida, nationally, and worldwide.
Among all the workshops, the most popular is the FLATE-FACTE Project Based Summer Workshops Series for career and technical educators (CTE) in Florida.  The first two of these two-day workshops’ series, which was held at Hillsborough Community College-Brandon Campus, were Robotics & 3D Printing on May 9th to the 10th, and Integrated Technology Projects on May 16th to the 17th.  During the first workshop, Robotics & 3D Printing, participants learned how to build and code the Lego EV3 robots; used Sketch Up CAD software and the Makerbot 3D printer. The second workshop, Integrated Technology Projects, participants were immersed in a variety of technology education projects in fields such as civil engineering, aerospace, and electronics technology.

Educators from around the state who answered the survey, 100% (13) found both workshops to be of great professional development value, and anticipate that as a result of attending the workshop they will share and use FLATE, Made in Florida available educational resources. Additionally over 95% of the attendees agreed that the overall workshop was very good or excellent.

Here are some comments from participants:

“Best workshop of the year, worth the 3-hr drive”
“Great training. I loved learning about 3D printing and robotics. Also, it was fun and engaging”

Additionally, FLATE will be hosting two more summer workshops: the FANUC Robot Training Workshop for teachers on June 17th through 19th at Central Florida College (CF) in Ocala, and the Summer Working Connections Introduction to Mechatronics on July 8th through 12th at Florida State College-Jacksonville (FSCJ).

The four-day FANUC workshop, sponsored by FACTE, at CF will focus on how to deliver instructions on robotics in the classroom using FANUC’s Certified Education Robot Training (CERT) program. The CERT is the ideal platform for teaching how to program a real industry-grade robot, in real time, in a safe and controlled environment.


The Summer Working Connections introduction to Mechatronics at FSCJ is a key element of CollaboATE, a NSF funded project in partnership with Anne Arundel Community College (Maryland), College of Lake County (Illinois) and Florida State College at Jacksonville (Florida). This workshop will provide hands-on activities in mechatronics concepts including basic electrical theory, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and pneumatics.
For more information about CTE workshops contact Dr. Marilyn Barger, Executive Director of FLATE at barger@fl-ate.org or visit flate-professional development opportunities

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