For Immediate Release
August 26, 2010

National Science Foundation Awards College Two-Year, $150,000 Grant to Improve Community College Engineering Education Through Technology

The grant will fund development of a Summer Engineering Teaching Institute and a Joint Engineering Program for community colleges without engineering programs.

Cañada College has received a two-year, $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to help improve community college engineering education around the state and eventually increase the number of engineering graduates in California.

Principal Investigator Amelito Enriquez said Cañada College will establish the Online and Networked Education for Students in Transfer Engineering Programs (ONE-STEP) which aims to improve community college engineering education through the use of online technology.

Emphasis will be given to Tablet-PC and wireless network technologies to improve learning through active, interactive, and collaborative instruction, as well as synchronous, two-way online instruction. The aim is to increase the number and diversity of students transferring to four-year institutions as engineering majors, and maximize the productivity and improve the viability of community college engineering programs.

The grant will fund the Summer Engineering Teaching Institute which will include 10 community college engineering faculty from around state who will gather at Cañada next summer. They will be instructed in how to develop a Tablet-PC-enhanced interactive model of engineering instruction. They will also be taught how to develop online courses using CCC Confer – a videoconferencing platform that is available to all California Community College system faculty and staff.

The grant will also fund the Joint Engineering Program. Enriquez will be working with the Mathematics, Engineering, Science, Achievement (MESA) Program’s statewide office to identify colleges with MESA Programs but no engineering program, or limited academic offerings in engineering. He will then develop partnerships with those colleges to design and implement engineering programs that are delivered online through CCC Confer.

“The Joint Engineering Program will increase the number of successful community college engineering programs in the state, thereby strengthening a critically important pipeline of engineering education,” Enriquez said.

Ideally, the two projects will increase the number of academically prepared engineering students transferring to four-year institutions; increase the number of underrepresented engineering students; reduce the time and money transfer students spend receiving their four-year engineering degree; increase the productivity and efficiency of community college engineering departments; and increase the involvement of engineering faculty in classroom-based instructional research.

“The two programs funded by this grant will create a network of community college engineering faculty that will be able to share ideas and educational research designed to help students succeed,” Enriquez said.

For more information, contact Robert Hood, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, at hoodr@smccd.edu or 306-3340