Advanced Technological Education: Collaborative Outreach and Engagement to Communicate Impacts and Outcomes

国家科学基金会的高级技术教育(ATE)计划侧重于加强高级技术领域的技术人员教育。它强调教育/行业伙伴关系，并支持主要以全国两年制高等教育机构为基础的项目。ATE鼓励和支持这些机构扩大其在教育熟练技术劳动力方面的领导作用。该计划建立的社区和合作对国家熟练技术劳动力的发展产生了令人印象深刻的持续影响。ATE Impact一书通过展示ATE项目支持和放大的项目、学生、教师和行业合作伙伴的多样性来展示这种影响。正如美国国家科学委员会2019年的报告《熟练的技术劳动力：打造美国的科学与工程企业》中所概述的那样，分享技术人员教育影响的信息是至关重要的。该报告讨论了改善技术人员教育信息的必要性，并“传达STW对我国S企业、个人经济繁荣、国家安全和美国全球竞争力的重要性。”这个项目将展示技术教育的杰出例子和关于熟练技术职业的信息是如何改变的。它还将有助于加强伙伴关系，鼓励社区建设，并支持在ATE内外的外联和传播。该项目将开发一套可交付成果，旨在收集和共享有关ATE计划的影响和结果的数据，包括计划资金的中心和项目，以及这些受赠者开发和部署的宝贵资源和活动。项目团队将与ATE社区、美国社区学院协会、Vox电视台和一个项目咨询委员会合作，帮助展示两年制社区和技术学院在建设熟练技术劳动力方面所发挥的重要作用，并提供证据表明美国经济对ATE内外技术人员教育的关键需求和影响。该项目将创建以下一套交付成果：1)三种新的ATE Impact印刷出版物(2022年、2024年和2026年版本)，涵盖ATE中心和项目、它们的影响以及整个ATE计划的影响；2)ATE Impact版本的数字版本，以无障碍PDF和交互式动画书格式；3)专业制作的视频，说明受ATE影响的个人(学生、教师、行业合作伙伴)，并在印刷和电子出版物中进行相应的传播；4)ATE Impact博客，将提供ATE社区不同部分的持续一系列例子，增加出版物的时效性和相关性；5)以受众和主题为重点的适应性组件，用于重新设计ATE Impact出版物和博客内容的框架，供ATE项目和中心以及其他利益攸关方在接触特定受众群体时使用；6)可视化图书馆，组织在创建ATE Impact出版物过程中收集的数百张照片，并使其可供ATE项目和中心及其他机构用于宣传和教育用途；7)ATE Impact在线门户网站，提供所有交付成果的免费访问。为所有这些交付内容制作和管理的内容将在知识共享许可下提供和分发，以鼓励最大限度地采用、重复使用和产生影响。该项目由高级技术教育计划资助，该计划专注于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program focuses on enhancing technician education in advanced technology fields. It emphasizes education/industry partnerships and supports projects based primarily at two-year institutions of higher education across the country. ATE encourages and supports these institutions to extend their leading roles in educating the skilled technical workforce. The community and collaborations built by this program have had an impressive and ongoing impact on the development of the nation’s skilled technical workforce. The ATE Impacts book showcases this impact by representing the diversity of programs, students, faculty, and industry partners supported and amplified by the ATE program. The need to share information about the impact of technician education is critical as outlined in the National Science Board’s 2019 report, “The Skilled Technical Workforce: Crafting America’s Science & Engineering Enterprise.” The report discusses the need to improve the message about technician education and “communicate the importance of the STW to our nation’s S&E enterprise, individual economic prosperity, national security, and US global competitiveness.” This project will showcase outstanding examples of how technical education and messages about skilled technical careers are changing. It will also help strengthen partnerships, encourage community building, and support outreach and dissemination within and beyond ATE.This project will develop a suite of deliverables designed to collect and share data about the impacts and outcomes of the ATE program, including the centers and projects the program funds and the valuable resources and activities these grantees develop and deploy. The project team will work collaboratively with the ATE community, the American Association of Community Colleges, Vox Television, and a project Advisory Board to help showcase the important role two-year community and technical colleges play in building the skilled technical workforce and provide evidence of the critical U.S. economic need for and impact of technician education, within and beyond ATE. The project will create the following set of deliverables: 1) Three new ATE Impacts print publications (2022, 2024, and 2026 editions), covering ATE centers and projects, their impacts, and the impacts of the whole ATE program; 2) Digital versions of the ATE Impacts editions, in both accessible PDF and interactive flipbook format; 3) Professionally-produced videos that illustrate individuals (student, faculty, industry partner) impacted by ATE, with a corresponding spread in the print and electronic publications; 4) An ATE Impacts Blog that will provide an ongoing series of examples from different segments of the ATE community, increasing the currency and relevance of the publications; 5) Audience- and subject-focused adaptable components to re-frame the ATE Impacts publication and blog content for use by ATE projects and centers and other stakeholders in outreach to specific audience segments; 6) A visual library that organizes the hundreds of photos gathered in the process of creating the ATE Impacts publications and makes them available for use by ATE projects and centers and others for promotional and educational use; 7) An ATE Impacts online portal to provide no-cost access to all of the deliverables. The content produced and managed for all of these deliverables will be offered and distributed under a Creative Commons license, to encourage maximum adoption, reuse, and impact. 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.