Information Technology Across Careers (ITAC 3) MiniGrant Opportunity
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ITAC 3 offers community college faculty and students a final opportunity to test the effectiveness of ITAC instructional materials before the grant ends September 30, 2010.
The purpose is to assess if teaching IT technical knowledge and skills through scenario-based lessons in a variety of industry sectors (architecture, law and public safety, manufacturing) is an effective way to achieve learning objectives.
Stipends will be provided to participating administrators ($500) and faculty ($1000 each) of up to 3 schools upon completion and submission of field test materials. Students will receive stipends of $50 each upon submission of required work. All work will be completed and submitted online. Open field test period: Today -September 28, 2010
Depending upon the materials selected by participating faculty, the field test process can span 1-2 class periods or if given as homework assignment, may take a week to complete.
Detailed responsibilities for college administrators:
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- Recruit teachers for field test
- Review responsibilities/materials with teachers agreeing to participate in field test.
- Register online
- Participate in three phone conference calls with EDC (1. Orientation; 2. Update ITAC staff on progress and/ or troubleshoot problems; 3. Debrief at end of field test).
- Support (i.e. check in with) teachers during field testing, troubleshoot problems
- Ensure required materials are posted online by September 30
Detailed responsibilities for participating faculty:
- Complete online start-up form (identify scenarios to be field tested, course, # of students); and EDC service agreement paperwork for self and participating students.
- Participate in orientation conference call with ITAC staff.
- From the ITAC website (https://itac.edc.org) , go to any of the following industry sectors identified below:
ARCHITECTURE & CONSTRUCTION (A&C) (opens in a new window)
ARTS, A/V TECHNOLOGY & COMMUNICATIONS (AAVTC) (opens in a new window)
LAW, PUBLIC SAFETY, CORRECTIONS, & SECURITY (LPSCS) (opens in a new window)
MANUFACTURING (MFG) (opens in a new window)
Next, scroll down to the bottom and identify one or two scenarios to be field tested. Refer to the rubrics associate with any of these four industry sectors to see what the student should actually be able to do and you may also share the rubrics with the student.
Discuss scenario choices (by phone) with ITAC staff.
- Identify two classes (or groups of comparable students) who will participate in this field test. Classes should include minimum of 10 students each. Have students sign-up/create their own account on EDC site.
- Develop and send to EDC for review a pre-test of course content for the scenario (e.g. health content, LPSCS content..) selected. ITAC rubrics will be used to score skills and knowledge for information technology. Faculty will be trained in how to score for IT skills using the rubrics
- Pre-test both groups of students. Score tests.
- Upon discussion/approval from ITAC staff field test scenario with one class while teaching the course content in your traditional style with the other. Lesson/scenarios can be taught in class or assigned as homework/project. Ensure student work is completed and uploaded to ITAC site.
- Post test both groups of students and score tests. Submit scores to ITAC staff by Sept 30.
- Provide written feedback on field test experience (online) and participate in post field test conference call.
About IT Across Careers (ITAC): funded by the National Science Foundation, Advanced Technological Education (NSF-ATE) division to develop a common curricular framework and resources for teaching and assessing IT Core Applications in career and academic programs at community and technical colleges. Materials provide a platform that faculty at community & technical colleges can use to help students to benchmark & track their IT core skill development against validated industry standards and learn authentically in their courses and programs how IT is used on the job in different careers to deepen their understanding of today’s 21st century workforce. ITAC’s web-based library of instructional resources and tools include Performance-based rubrics, Customizable Scenario-based IT Skills Lessons, Authentic Workplace Scenarios that interconnect the use of one or more core IT applications to solve a real work problem, IT in Action – robust & technically rigorous examples of how people use basic IT applications in their daily work and ITAC Delicious Resources.
For more information contact:
Joyce Malyn-Smith
PI Information Technology Across Careers
617-618-2386