Online Instructional Resources for Material Science Technology Education

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Over the last one hundred years, material scientists have greatly improved traditional materials. They have also made technological breakthroughs that produced new nanoscale, biological, smart, and composite materials. This project will support a national network for materials technology education. The network will include educational institutions, industry, and professional societies. The long-term goal of the project is to ensure that materials technology education meets industry standards and produces technicians who are well prepared for work across different manufacturing sectors. To achieve this goal, the project will develop and share online resources to support the materials technological education of students and incumbent workers.The project builds upon the experience and infrastructure of the National Resource Center for Materials Technology Education at Edmonds Community College. Its goal is to support the development of instructional resources for the materials science education community. National network members come from community colleges, four-year institutions, industry partners, community organizations and professional societies. The specific aims of the project include: to improve and expand national access to an online collection of high-quality instructional resources including competency-based modules, presentations, labs, and demonstrations; to implement dissemination strategies that promote increased awareness of online resources, support partnerships, and expand strategic opportunities for the materials science education community; and to leverage the expertise of collaborating national partners to achieve strategic scalability of instructional resources. During this project, technician skill gaps will be identified, instructional modules that address the skill gaps will be developed, and a handbook on materials technology education will be written through a joint effort of network members. The project evaluation will provide insights on how the instructional resources impact students in the national network of educational institutions. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.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.