About Us
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With an emphasis on two-year colleges, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program focuses on the training and education needed to produce the high-skilled science and engineering technicians demanded by our nation’s workforce and economy. The NSF supports this initiative through projects designed to improve the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) preparation of technicians. Specifically, ATE programs are designed to: 1) develop, disseminate, implement, and assess new curriculum and teaching methodologies; 2) provide professional development of faculty; and 3) foster collaboration between academic institutions and employers.
- describing and analyzing the landscape of existing practices for what we have termed Critical Aspects of ATE/STEM Programs.
- aligning the four Critical Aspects with theoretical and conceptual literature.
- designing new coherent and comprehensive frameworks for future research.
- producing guides that identify best practices to be incorporated in current and future ATE programs.
- To describe and analyze the multiple methods that current ATE programs use to assess student learning, and to develop a research-based framework for assessing student learning outcomes for education in STEM fields.
- To describe the range of current program elements in ATE programs, and to design a research-based framework for linking the contributions of these program elements with a variety of indicators of student success.
- To describe the multiple meaningful ways in which ATE programs share information with others, and to develop a research-based framework for dissemination and transportability.
- To identify the role ATE participation has on leadership development of faculty, and to develop a research-based framework for transformational leadership development in ATE-funded programs.
The goals of the Student and Organizational Learning: Preparing the 21 st Century Technician project center on theory-driven research to describe, analyze, and design new frameworks by:
The objectives of this project are:
Conceptual framework for examining the Four Critical Aspects
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Improve . . . student learning: ATE programs promise to increase student learning and also to expand its content. We know that ATE programs plan to increase student learning in liberal arts areas, including science and mathematics, at the same time they foster student learning in applied areas like engineering and technology. What we do not know is how a range of ATE programs measure student learning. What evidence demonstrates that students have gained more or different competencies than they would in conventional programs? This Aspect will apply research-based concepts and theories to discover an array of evidence used by ATE programs to verify student learning.
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Design . . . novel curriculum and pedagogy: ATE programs often promise to develop novel curricular materials or ways of teaching to improve student learning. These products often blend content with pedagogy, so that students are self-directed to learn to construct their own meaning. Using indicators of high quality curriculum and pedagogy from research, this Aspect will explore the range of programmatic elements implemented by ATE programs to verify student learning.
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Disseminate . . . innovative material: For NSF to gain maximum return on its investment in technician education in STEM fields, it is essential that innovations developed with grant funding be shared with educators at other sites. ATE programs rate themselves, and are rated by other colleges, by the amount of dissemination that has been accomplished. Applying research on the adoption of innovations, this Aspect will explore the variety of tangible and intangible products that our sample colleges have shared with others.
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Develop . . . transformational leadership: Although ATE does not explicitly address a goal of developing leaders who can guide transformational change among the nation’s community colleges, we believe NSF funded activities might have this result. This Aspect intends to explore if engagement in ATE programs has facilitated professional advancement for faculty. If so, we will apply the American Council on Education (ACE) processes used by leaders to transform organizations in order to discover what types of NSF funded endeavors are likely to build leadership capacity.
