Expanding the National Center for Welding Education

扩建国家焊接教育中心

• 批准号: 1400351
• 负责人: Monica Pfarr
• 金额: $ 160万
• 依托单位: Lorain County Community College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1400351&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Expanding; National; Center; Welding; Education

This project is supporting Weld-Ed, a national partnership between the welding and materials joining industry and the nation's community and technical colleges and universities, transitioning to an ATE Resource Center for welding technician education. As an ATE Resource Center, Weld-Ed is continuing to support the role and pipeline of welding technicians in industry. Weld-Ed is achieving this goal by: offering a comprehensive welding professional development program for high school teachers, community college and university faculty members, continuing to advance welding technology programs nationally, providing technical assistance consulting to welding programs nationally, and developing a certification program for high school and community college welding technology programs to support improved programs of study with a focus on continuous process improvement. The comprehensive formative and summative evaluation plan includes two project evaluators. Together, they will craft the evaluation design and specifics, develop/adapt the needed instrumentation, and manage data security and analyses. The internal evaluator will be responsible for data collection, analysis, and writing formative evaluation reports. The external evaluator will be responsible for the overall evaluation. The External Evaluator will review data collected, documents and work products, and will use a protocol to interview staff, customers, students, and partners. The Formative Evaluation will focus on implementation and progress. The implementation evaluation will track whether the project is being conducted as planned. Progress evaluation will determine to what extent the project's goals and objectives are being met. Qualitative and quantitative data will be collected using a mixed-methods approach (Stevens, et. al. 1992) (Frechtling and Sharp 1997). The external evaluator will ensure objectivity and manage the overall summative evaluation. The summative evaluation will address the following questions: 'Was the project successful?' 'Did the project meet the overall goal?' 'What components were most effective?' 'Were the results worth the project's cost?' and 'Is the project replicable and transportable?' The project has four primary objectives. Objective 1 is to offer a comprehensive welding professional development program for high school teachers, community college and university faculty members. Success will be measured by faculty use of instructional materials and number of individuals participating, and the degree of implementation of curricular improvements on the campuses. Objective 2 is to develop a certification program for high school and community college welding technology programs. Success will be measured by the number of schools participating and the institutionalization of programs. Objective 3 is to advance welding technology programs nationally. Success will be measured by the number of students involved in outreach activities, andthe number of students enrolled in and graduating from welding programs. Objective 4 is to provide technical assistance consulting to welding programs nationally. Success would be measured by the number of consulting engagements, numbers of programs reached, courses changed, and students impacted. This project addresses the welding industry, which is experiencing single digit job growth and double digit retirement and attrition of welders and welding technicians. Weld-Ed partners with industry including: American Welding Society, Lockheed Martin, Lincoln Electric, plus 154 industry affiliates, and high school, 2-year and 4-year institutions. The instructional materials and research reports being developed and distributed by the project reach thousands of educational institutions and tens of thousands of students annually. The State of Welding Industry Report is a publication of the project which is distributed nationally. There are significant efforts to attract underrepresented populations.

该项目支持Weld-Ed，这是焊接和材料连接行业与国家社区和技术学院和大学之间的国家合作伙伴关系，转型为焊接技术人员教育的ATE资源中心。作为ATE资源中心，Weld-Ed将继续支持焊接技术人员在工业中的角色和管道。Weld-Ed通过以下方式实现了这一目标：为高中教师、社区学院和大学教职员工提供全面的焊接专业发展计划，继续推进全国焊接技术项目，为全国焊接项目提供技术援助咨询，并为高中和社区学院焊接技术项目开发认证计划，以支持改进的研究计划，重点是持续的过程改进。综合形成性和总结性评价方案包括两名项目评价员。他们将共同制定评估设计和细节，开发/调整所需的仪器，并管理数据安全和分析。内部评估员将负责数据收集、分析和撰写形成性评估报告。外部评估员将负责整体评估。外部评估员将审查收集的数据、文档和工作产品，并将使用协议采访员工、客户、学生和合作伙伴。形成性评价将侧重于实施和进展。实施评估将跟踪项目是否按计划进行。进度评估将决定项目的目标和目的在多大程度上得到满足。定性和定量数据将采用混合方法收集（Stevens等人，1992年）（Frechtling和Sharp， 1997年）。外部评估人员将确保客观性并管理整体总结性评估。总结性评估将回答以下问题：“项目是否成功？”“项目达到总体目标了吗？”“什么成分最有效？”“结果是否值得这个项目的成本？”以及“项目是否可复制和可运输？”该项目有四个主要目标。目标1是为高中教师、社区学院和大学教师提供一个全面的焊接专业发展计划。成功与否将由教师对教学材料的使用、参与人数以及校园课程改进的实施程度来衡量。目标2是为高中和社区大学的焊接技术课程开发一个认证项目。成功与否将由参与的学校数量和项目的制度化来衡量。目标3是在全国范围内推进焊接技术项目。成功与否将由参与外展活动的学生人数以及参加焊接课程并从该课程毕业的学生人数来衡量。目标4是为全国焊接项目提供技术援助咨询。衡量成功的标准是咨询项目的数量、完成项目的数量、课程的变化和学生的影响。该项目针对的是焊接行业，该行业正在经历个位数的就业增长和两位数的焊工和焊接技术人员的退休和减员。Weld-Ed的合作伙伴包括：美国焊接协会，洛克希德马丁公司，林肯电气公司，以及154个行业附属机构，以及高中，两年制和四年制机构。该项目每年编写和分发的教材和研究报告覆盖数千所教育机构和数万名学生。《焊接行业现状报告》是该项目的出版物，在全国发行。为吸引代表性不足的人口，政府做出了重大努力。