Exploring Past Investment in Learning through Grant-funded Undergraduate Advanced Technology Education Centers

通过拨款资助的本科先进技术教育中心探索过去的学习投资

• 批准号: 1821248
• 负责人: Rebecca Zarch
• 金额: $ 21.43万
• 依托单位: SageFox Consulting Group, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-08-15 至 2021-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1821248&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Exploring; Past; Investment; Learning; through

NSF has made significant investments in ATE centers to promote the scaling and sustainability of advanced technological education at community colleges. Several centers were supported for many years over multiple funding cycles, often starting out as regional centers before scaling up nationally. During the life of the centers, much was learned through third-party evaluation, participation in the annual ATE program data-collection effort led by EvaluATE, and annual project reports. This project aims to study the impact of the centers in the post-award period. This study has the potential to identify those consequences that are most associated with scaling and sustainability. The lessons learned will be shared with the ATE community, and the NSF more generally, such that it will inform future Centers.This project will explore the legacy of ATE centers by investigating which ideas, innovations, knowledge, and products developed by the center continue to evolve, to be used, and to influence technician education programs. Additionally, given that the centers are no longer funded, Principal Investigators (PIs) may be more willing to share missteps and lessons learned than they were while funded. Thus, the study will include PI reflections on the challenges the centers faced in maximizing their impact. It is expected that project outcomes will benefit: 1) current center PIs learning from their predecessors about how to scale and/or sustain elements of their centers and other elements that they may need to consider as they try to impact technical education; 2) proposers of new centers may gain a greater awareness of planning for scale and/or sustainability; 3) reviewers of ATE center proposals may be better equipped to judge the proposals; 4) NSF and other organizations that may want to adopt a center model may be more aware of the potential impact and possible limitations of a center-based approach to education; and 5) developing a model for post-funding reporting may support others looking to evaluate impacts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF对ATE中心进行了大量投资，以促进社区学院先进技术教育的规模和可持续性。几个中心在多个供资周期中获得了多年的支持，通常是从区域中心开始，然后在全国范围内扩大规模。在这些中心的生命周期中，通过第三方评估、参与由EvaluATE领导的年度ATE计划数据收集工作以及年度项目报告，我们学到了很多东西。该项目旨在研究中心在获奖后的影响。这项研究有可能确定与规模和可持续性最相关的后果。该项目将通过调查ATE中心开发的哪些想法、创新、知识和产品继续发展、使用和影响技术人员教育计划，探索ATE中心的遗产。此外，考虑到这些中心不再获得资助，主要研究者（PI）可能比资助时更愿意分享失误和经验教训。因此，该研究将包括PI对中心在最大限度地发挥其影响方面所面临的挑战的思考。预计项目成果将受益于：1）当前的中心PI从他们的前辈那里学习如何扩展和/或维持他们的中心元素以及他们在试图影响技术教育时可能需要考虑的其他元素; 2）新中心的提议者可能会更好地了解规模和/或可持续性的规划; 3）ATE中心提案的评审者可能更有能力判断提案; 4）NSF和其他可能希望采用中心模式的组织可能更了解基于中心的教育方法的潜在影响和可能的局限性;以及5）开发一个资助后报告的模型可以支持其他寻求评估影响的人。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。