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Florence-Darlington Technical College Wins $1.6M Grant From National Science Foundation

Submitted by: Clay Williams on Jul 16, 2010 at 1:56 pm Tagged with: Technical Colleges Source: Florence-Darlington Technical College

The South Carolina Advanced Technological Education National Resource Center for Expanding Excellence in Technician Education: Advancing Faculty Development and Program Improvement headquartered at Florence-Darlington Technical College has been awarded a $1.6 Million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to support a four-year project.

The SC ATE Center has been a national leader in the improvement of engineering technology and related technician education since 1994. SC ATE provides successful models, services, and resources for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) educators nationally and beyond.

SC ATE Center Director, Elaine Craft, said, “Now more than ever, highly skilled technicians are essential to support and grow the US economy and fortunately, this need is being uniquely addressed by the NSF/ATE Program. We are very proud that the SC ATE Center and Florence-Darlington Technical College share this focus and are partners in this effort.”

While the project will employ web 2.0 capabilities to effectively address the needs of educators and support improvement in technician education nationally, all SC ATE Center innovations are first developed, tested, and implemented locally to benefit South Carolina students and employers. As US Senator Lindsey Graham has observed, “This grant will benefit many South Carolinians.”

According to Dr. Joshua Phiri, Principal Investigator for the project, the SC ATE National Resource Center will be adapting and implementing innovative strategies and using Web 2.0 technologies to (1) expand the services and increase use of www.TeachingTechnicians.org, (2) scale up peer mentoring and technical assistance to affect program improvement in technician education; (3) identify and broadly disseminate proven and promising strategies for program improvement, with a specific focus on broadening participation of underrepresented groups; and, (4) stimulate the use of evaluation tools with faculty development programs to identify and sustain success and help foster a culture of evaluation in the ATE program.

Two years ago, the SC ATE Center developed www.TeachingTechnicians.org as the first national website dedicated to linking educators to cost-effective professional development opportunities provided by the nation’s NSF/ATE grantees. For more information, contact Tressa Gardner, Project Manager, SC ATE Center, 843-676-8559, or via email at Patressa.Gardner@fdtc.edu.