Atlantic Tech ROAD TRIP

ROAD TRIP!

Last month, Kevin Finan and eight of his machining program seniors form Atlantic Technical College in Broward County took a road trip to USF College of Engineering and the Haas Outlet in Tampa.  Kevin is a firm believer that providing students exposure to various opportunities for his students after graduation is very important.  First hand exposure to various programs and levels of post-secondary education and various workplace settings is extremely helpful for young people when they are trying to identify what they want to do and where they might fit into the future.  Often students know right way after making a visit to a company, college or university that that is a place they want work or, equally important, that it’s NOT a place can see themselves in the future.  The students had a great time, asked a lot of good questions at both “stops” on their “road trip”.  At the Haas Outlet, they of course learned about the latest CNC technologies and about careers in machining.  At USF, they visited several labs including electrical engineering, industrial manufacturing lab, the nanotechnology research and technology center and the student innovation lab space.  They also heard about the engineering college programs from Eva Fernandez and mechanical engineering students and explored the student projects in the innovation lab.  There might be no better way to engage and encourage seniors to start seriously exploring options than field trips.  FLATE would like to thank all their USF partners for supporting the tour request and helping to provide a rich experience for the Atlantic Tech students.  A big shout out to Eva Fernandez, Rob Tufts, Dr. Susana Lai Yuen and the Electrical engineering team for taking time to share their engineering passions with these students.

BREAKING NEWS!:  The Atlantic Tech (ATC) SkillsUSA Machining team just won the regional competition and will be heading  to the state competition at the end of April. Congratulations to the students from ATC and best of luck in the state competition!

FLATE & St. John State Join efforts to Recruit & Retain Women in STEM Careers Pathways

FLATE & St. John State Join efforts to Recruit & Retain Women in STEM Careers Pathways

All across the board educators, advisors, counselors and industry leaders are increasingly voicing a real and ever-present challenge of recruiting and retaining women in STEM careers. To address some of these concerns, and to start a platform for an open dialogue, FLATE—NSF Center of Excellence in Advanced Technological Education presented a workshop hosted by St. John River State College (SJRSC), Orange Park Campus in Orange Park, FL.  The professional development workshop, “Recruiting Girls for STEM Pathways”, featured best practices for educators, recruiters, counselors, advisors, and anyone interested in promoting STEM careers to women and girls.

Participants who attended the workshop had the opportunity to interact with a panel of two STEM female experts and one female STEM student, explored STEM based resources, shared current female recruitment practices and engaged in teamwork to develop strategic action plans.  The action plans included both short and long-term goals to recruit and retain female STEM programs.

Based on a post survey conducted by FLATE, over 95% of participants who responded the survey (22 out of 25) rated good and/or excellent their satisfaction with the overall professional development value provided during the “Women in STEM-Career Pathways Recruitment and Retention workshop”.  The same percentage of responses indicated that they are planning to use the information presented, will recommend this type of workshop to other colleagues, and agreed and/or strongly agreed that the workshop is an effective way to promote the importance of women in STEM career pathways recruitment and retention. Nearly 90% of people surveyed also agreed and/or strongly agreed that the STEM professional panel was engaging and provided important advice regarding female recruitment and retention. Approximately 95% of responses also agreed and/or strongly agreed the Round Robin and group session provided a big picture of current practices and potential action plan to improve the recruitment and retention of females in their programs.

Comments from Participants:

“Having these discussions and listening to different viewpoints and perspectives will help in everyday decision-making process in our role as educators and advisors”

“I love the panel and the brainstorming. This was wonderful; I learned a lot”

“Great platform to share ideas, planning, and experience”

For more details about the workshop including the presentations, please visit FLATE’s wiki presentation page, or contact Marilyn Barger at barger@fl-ate.org  For additional information related resources visit www.fl-ate.org and www.madeinflorida.org.

http://fl-ate.org/flip/BP/2016/stem-girls/

Manufacturing Excellence in Florida (part 2)

                                   
In the last FLATE FOCUS we started the conversation about Florida achieving manufacturing excellence. FLATE's part of that quest is the connection between quality and excellence expectations on the manufacturing floor and the workforce that provides the mechanism to achieve those expectations. The hard part of technical workforce development is reflected in the reality that the manufacturers alone cannot create the workforce that optimally complements the advanced technologies these manufacturers are simultaneously inserting into their manufacturing environments. To be sure, manufacturers do get great initial technical support from their equipment suppliers but those efforts are focused on installation and startup. Long term integration of new technologies into the main stream of a specific company’s manufacturing process and the accompanying protocols in a specific facility still remains squarely within the manufacturer's domain. Thus, a Florida based manufacturing workforce talent pool must have candidates that demonstrate a depth and breadth of knowledge and skills defined by the demands of various advanced manufacturing equipment technologies.

FloridaMakes, the United State Department of Commerce Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Center for Florida, and FLATE, a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education Center for Manufacturing (NSF-ATE) in Florida, have entered into a partnership with the long-term goal to develop a world-class technical workforce that will be the backbone for Florida manufacturing.  This union allows the blending of focused resources and expertise to accomplish this mission. It also allows manufacturers to take advantage of the value-added both of these Centers possess.  Ultimately, FloridaMakes, as a member of the MEP National Network, and FLATE, as an NSF Advanced Technological Education Center of Excellence, now have access to combined MEP and ATE national knowledge, current recommended practices, and expertise that will address the challenges generated by Florida's need to have a highly talented manufacturing workforce pool.

 At this point, four target mechanisms have been identified as key elements in creating this talent resource for manufacturers;

·       Work-based Learning

·       Internship & Apprenticeships

·       Skill Certification

·       Talent Pipeline Development.

Although these elements are foundation pillars for talent pool development, they are not addressed within a unified education strategy. Work-based learning and internship and apprenticeships, are viewed as standalone components for workforce training. The overall talent pipeline development does reside within the K-16 academic structure but it has, at best, a dim focus on manufacturing workforce career options. This MEP-ATE partnership in Florida is unique in the nation and it will result in a dramatic difference in the way these four workforce development elements are addressed in Florida.

This brings this FLATE FOCUS article full circle. The hard part of technical workforce development is reflected in the reality that manufacturers alone cannot create the workforce with the additional fact that the workforce pool needed cannot be created without manufacturers’ involvement. Fortunately for Florida, there are proactive Regional Manufacturing Associations (RMA) that are involved in workforce education and training. Please contact your RMA and join in their efforts.  For specific contact information about your RMA, either Richard Gilbert, gilbert@usf.edu or Lake Ray lake@fcmaweb.com from FLATE and the First Coast Manufacturing Association, respectively, will help you get connected. As FLATE FOCUS continues with this Manufacturing Excellence in Florida theme, we will elaborate on the components statekholders have that can directly contribute to creating a world class manufacturing workforce in Florida. The March FOCUS will address how this new FLATE and FloridaMakes partnership will make a major difference in the approach to manufacturing workforce development and manufacturing excellence in Florida.

For more information about FloridaMakes, visit their website.  If you have questions about this article, please contact Dr. Richard Gilbert at gilbert@usf.edu. 

Needed Math for Entry-Level Technicians

What is Needed Math (for entry-level technicians)?

A common barrier for post-secondary technical education programs is the mathematics skills and knowledge of entering students. Related issues that must be triangulated with incoming students’ math levels are (1) college degree mathematics requirements; (2) specific math needed to support the technical program content; (3) the content and length of the courses in which the needed math is typically covered; and (4) restrictions on the length of the degree or certificate program.

Over the holiday weekend last month, approximately 60 secondary and post-secondary educators, industry representatives and mathematics education experts convened in Baltimore for an intense three days defining the issues, specific math skills and knowledge, what is needed for student success.  This gathering was coordinated by a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (NSF ATE) funded conference grant (DUE #1737946) award to Hofstra University. The goal of the project is to define the current needed mathematics for technician education programs in three advanced technology domains: Advanced Manufacturing, Biotechnology and Information Technology. A steering committee with education and industry representatives met to define and invite appropriate attendees, the overarching needs, the working sessions and group goals and objectives and overall conference agenda.  FLATE is representing the Advanced Manufacturing domain for education on this committee. 

During the conference, participants worked in domain groups (industry sectors); affinity groups (educators, industry representative, mathematics education experts); and whole group activities.  The conference also heard from an industry panel about their company and sector technician talent needs and what they predict their future needs will be. The external evaluator, research associate and technical writer also participated in the full conference and steering committee to help keep the group focused on the goals and objectives and to observe and participate in the various working groups. 

Both the individual energy and enthusiasm for the work being done was honest, sincere and pervasive. Industry representatives were very engaged and made special note that they were happy to be included to share their personal and industry sector technician education needs. They were also very interested in learning more about the formalities of the education system with respect to defined courses and course content, degrees and degree structure, and the hierarchies of content.

The conference project leadership and steering committee are working through the 50+ flip chart pages; sample problem templates, participant feedback and afterthoughts, notes and recordings So what were some of the first “take-aways” from the conference? Here are few!

·     Math is still a barrier for some students but it can be overcome

·     We think we know what math is needed for entry level technicians in the 3 disciplines

·     We are not sure how and where to teach this needed math within the educational system

·     Technical program faculty are very willing to teach needed math in context

·     Partnerships between math and technician educators and industry should be encouraged

·     It’s unclear that technicians need any “whole courses” beyond college algebra

·     Industry is very interested in workforce education and participating in this conversation

·     Workplace applications of basic math are complex and consequential

·     Gaps between what is taught and what is needed should be defined

Answers to some of these questions could cause technician educators to change what and how they teach and impact the formalized mathematics education courses and frameworks.  All of this is important to our Florida Engineering Technology degree as well as other technician education programs in our state.  There is certainly a balance of educating technicians so they are “ready to work”, the time investment of the education process, the level of theory and background needed for straight forward mathematics operations that are well defined and used repeatedly.  The steering committee is continuing its work to compile the information gathered and propose recommendations and possible strategies.  A white paper/conference proceedings document will be published and will be available in early June.  For more information about the project, participants, resources and workshop, please visit the Needed Math website: www.neededmath.org or contact Dr. Marilyn Barger (barger@fl-ate.org) .