Winter 2005 |
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School-to-work consortium
helps |
Education and economic development are closely linked. A skilled labor force
is critical to attract companies with high-paying jobs to locate in a community.
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| A new technology park in Fitzgerald was the catalyst for a project designed to close the gap between the needs of technology industry and high-school curriculum. | |
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“Yet if educators don’t understand what skills and educational background employers are looking for, their students may be unaware of emerging career opportunities -- or unprepared for them,” says Claudia Huff, director of Georgia Tech’s Foundations for the Future (F3).
A collaboration of researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), F3’s mission is to accelerate technology use in K-12 classrooms throughout Georgia. One of its recent projects, a school-to-work consortium in southeastern Georgia, has focused on closing educational gaps that might hinder economic development.
The catalyst was a new technology park in Fitzgerald, Ga., being developed next to East Central Technical College (ECTC). To support the park, ECTC has been building a new telecommunications learning facility and developing new curriculum to provide employers with a steady supply of well-trained graduates. Yet another piece of that strategy was to ensure the success of incoming students, and ECTC approached GTRI to help align its curriculum with five surrounding high school systems.
In addition to providing technical expertise, F3 developed the necessary infrastructure for the consortium, which was funded by the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education. Participants were recruited from ECTC and South Georgia College faculty along with teachers and curriculum specialists from high schools in Ben Hill, Irwin, Atkinson, Coffee and Wilcox counties.
“The idea was to bring the faculty together to discuss their experiences and address disconnects that occur between high school, college and the work world,” Huff explains.
One of the participants’ first steps was to tour ECTC – an eye-opener for Sandy Bostelman, curriculum director at Ben Hill County Schools. “I realized that our high-school tech prep students needed more advanced math than they were getting to pursue telecommunications careers,” she explains.
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| A new technology park located adjacent to the East Central Technical College in Fitzgerald was the catalyst for a project designed to close the gap between the needs of technology industry and high-school curriculum. | |
Photo: Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education | |
During the past two years, Bostelman and other consortium members compared 76 courses at ECTC with 30 high school courses. Numerous modifications were recommended to existing courses in mathematics, science, social science, English and technology, such as:
• Requiring more technical writing. For example, students might be asked to create a “Read Me” file that describes how to use a specific software program.
• Asking students to use Microsoft Word software when writing science lab reports and Excel to present data in a spreadsheet format.
• Requiring students to learn the binary number system, which is the backbone of computer processing.
• Learning more computer terminology and maintenance -- from installation to troubleshooting and repair.
What’s more, a new high school course, Telecom Technology Overview, has been proposed to prepare students for ECTC’s new broadband and telecommunications offerings. The consortium also recommended co-teaching efforts, such as ECTC faculty working with high school classes or high school students visiting the college.
Demonstrations of technical equipment are especially effective in engaging students, says Jeff Evans, F3’s associate director. For example, measuring signal reception on cellular systems illustrates why they need to know logarithmic concepts used in signal-testing equipment. “Students learn best when they understand why they’re learning what they’re learning,” Evans says. “And if you tie concepts into a unique technology that captures their attention, it can motivate students to embrace a particular career path.”
At the other end of the spectrum, the consortium’s work will help teachers better prepare students in lower grades. “The idea of seamlessness in K-12 education is not so new or revolutionary,” Huff says. “But the actual practice is sufficiently scarce that it remains more of a goal for most educators -- a goal toward which we constantly strive. Curriculum alignment helps teachers become better teachers and students become better learners.”
Van Waters, executive vice president at ECTC, views curriculum alignment as an economic-development tool. “It shows technology companies that we understand what it takes to be successful,” he says.
And attracting high-tech companies to Fitzgerald is key to battling brain drain. “Being able to offer good, high-paying jobs to our best and brightest students helps keep them at home instead of losing them to larger cities,” Waters explains.
The consortium’s work should have far-reaching results, Waters adds: “Even though the consortium focused on technology education, the framework that Georgia Tech developed could be replicated in other areas, such as medical fields.”
For more information, Claudia Huff at 404-894-3941 or claudia.huff@gtri.gatech.edu
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Last updated: December 27, 2004