GeoTech Center: Innovation in Geospatial Information Science and Technology Education

国家地理空间技术卓越中心（GeoTech Center）是一个由两年制学院、大学、专业组织和行业合作的组织，专注于一套专门的信息技术，即地理空间信息科学与技术（GIST）。GeoTech中心抓住机会，在GIST中提供系统的教育变革，并协助成功学习者的扩散，从而扩大具有公认的行业定义技能和能力的高素质劳动力的领域。GeoTech中心的目标是：1)通过建立来自行业、政府和学术界的专业人士之间的关系，建立一个专注于GIST的实践社区；2)根据地理空间产业和不断扩大的辅助用户群体的当前需求，创建和传播相关的GIST课程和教学工具；3)通过为教师提供创新的教学策略，对相关STEM领域的GIST的见解，以及解决不同学习方式的工具，促进专业发展；4)通过GeoTech Center Clearinghouse提供资源，包括全国项目地图、GIST能力评估、示范课程、项目和其他服务；5)通过创建能力协议、职业路径和职业集群，支持学生在GIST中取得成功。GIST领域对各种行业都很重要，因此拥有一个能够满足其现有和不断变化的劳动力需求的教育领导者是很重要的。该中心建立在以往工作的基础上，并清楚地概述了接下来需要采取的步骤，包括开发教学方法，深入的课程内容，以及学生和教师资源。这些努力创造了一个专注于地理空间信息科学与技术的实践社区，因为它将教育工作者聚集在一起，以满足行业定义的需求，并展示对教育的广泛，国家影响，这将有助于美国保持全球竞争力，因为GIST行业的基本核心需求得到了实现。

The National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence (GeoTech Center) is a collaboration of two-year colleges, universities, professional organizations, and industry focused on a specialized set of information technologies referred to as Geospatial Information Science and Technology (GIST). The GeoTech Center embraces the opportunity to provide systemic educational change in GIST and assist in the proliferation of successful learners, thereby expanding the field with a well-qualified workforce having a recognized set of industry-defined skills and competencies. The goals of the GeoTech Center are to: 1) Build a Community of Practice focused on GIST by forging relationships between professionals from industry, government and academia; 2) Create and disseminate relevant GIST Curricula and pedagogical tools based upon the current needs of the geospatial industry and the expanding community of ancillary users; 3) Facilitate professional development by offering faculty access to innovative teaching strategies, insight into GIST in related STEM fields, and tools to address differing learning modalities; 4) Provide resources to include a national map of programs, GIST competency assessments, model courses, programs, and additional services through the GeoTech Center Clearinghouse; and 5) Support student success in GIST through the creation of competency protocols, career pathways, and career clusters.The GIST field is important to a variety of industries and therefore it is important to have an educational leader that can meet its existing and changing workforce demands. This Center builds upon previous work and clearly outlines the next steps that are needed, including developing pedagogical methods, in-depth curricular content, and student and faculty resources. These efforts create a community of practice focused on Geospatial Information Science and Technology, as it brings educators together to work on industry-defined needs and demonstrate a broad, national impact on education that will help the US remain globally competitive as essential core needs of the GIST industry are achieved.