Fostering collaboration, amplifying impact, & sustaining access to support advanced technological education

This $6.5 million project grant from the National Science Foundation's STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) will support the University of Wisconsin-Madison in delivering products and services through the Advanced Technological Education Central project to foster collaboration, amplify impact, and sustain access to resources for the advanced technology education community. Key deliverables include convergence labs, workshops on emerging technologies, informatics tools to analyze trends in the field, and an archiving service to preserve and provide long-term access to materials developed by Advanced Technological Education grantees. The project will also work to disseminate STEM curricula and metadata more broadly to support adoption and adaptation of this work. Services will be provided through February 1, 2023 to January 31, 2028 to support the NSF's investment in educating technicians for advanced technology fields critical to the U.S. economy.

Abstract

The advanced technological education (ATE) program supports a diverse community of grantees led primarily by educators at community and technical colleges. ATE funded projects and centers, in collaboration with their industry and education partners, create innovative programs in the high-tech applied stem fields critical to the US economy and develop thousands of valuable resources, activities, and events each year. ATE central grew out of needs raised by the community to help ensure that all the resources created were made available in one place and sustained over time. ATE central is now also an information and communication hub for the community, providing dynamic services and tools that support grantee work and an archiving service that helps sustain NSF?s valuable investment. This project will extend and enhance existing ATE central core components, as well as providing innovative new tools and services designed to foster collaboration within and beyond ATE, amplify the impact and efforts of the community, and sustain ongoing access to and extend and expand the impact of the valuable resources and materials developed by ATE grantees. The ATE central project team will create and deliver a new set of community-responsive solutions, tools, activities, and services and extend existing core ATE project components to support and amplify the work of ATE grantees. The proposed convergence labs and ATE works will be created and delivered in collaboration with ATE center and project staff to help provide unique opportunities to explore how melding fields and technologies is influencing and driving innovation. ATE informatics will support grantees, funders, and other stakeholders with a better understanding of the evolution of the community, pulling together available programmatic data from inception to present, showcasing potential trends, gaps, and future directions. The collective work of the ATE community and ATE central impacts a diverse set of stakeholders including students, faculty, and industry partners. ATE central shares out information and metadata about the deliverables and resources created by ATE grantees. The project will expand the awareness and reach of these critical ATE materials beyond ATE, via efforts like the stem curriculum dissemination channel and harvesting of metadata by organizations from the digital library and education communities like the stem exchange and oaister. The project's ongoing commitment to universal design will help ensure all stakeholders, including those with disabilities, can make use of these valuable resources. The archiving service will help protect NSF's investment and provide long- term access for current and future grantees, as well as those from the larger education community, extending and increasing the adoption, adaptation, and impact of the work of ATE grantees. 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.