Advanced Technological Education ·

Welcome to the ATE Central Connection! Published the first Monday of each month, the ATE Central Connection is meant to disseminate information to and about ATE centers and projects, providing you with up-to-date ATE news, events, reminders, as well as highlighting new centers, projects, and resources. In addition, we will also highlight an educational topic with complementary resources found within ATE Central to help illustrate how ATE resources can be used in the classroom.

We want the ATE Central Connection to be a valuable tool; please e-mail info@atecentral.net with any suggestions about how to make the ATE Central Connection more useful for you or to suggest any information you would like to see in an upcoming issue.

The NEW ATE Program Solicitation (NSF 18-571) is now available!

In This Issue

Featured Resources in General Advanced Technological Education

From Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative:

Increasing Student Achievement and Completion Rates through Undergraduate Research at Two-Year Colleges

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NpAvJctEzs

This webinar is provided by the American Association of Community Colleges and Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative and was presented on September 28, 2017. The webinar was "designed to profile undergraduate research as a high impact practice that community colleges are engaging in as a strategy to increase student achievement and completion in STEM programs." The webinar discusses proven strategies, lessons learned, and student outcomes around implementing course-based undergraduate research programs.

The webinar is divided into the following main sections:

  1. Undergraduate Research at the Community College
  2. Undergraduate Research Implementation
  3. The Importance of Undergraduate Research
  4. SPARC Program at Gaston College
  5. Barriers Exist

This recording runs 1:22:02 minutes in length.

From Bio-Link: Educating the BioTechnology Workforce:

Preparing for the Professional Interview

www.ncbionetwork.org/educational-resources/elearning/interactive-elearning-tools/job-interviewing

The North Carolina Community College System BioNetwork offers a number of interactive eLearning tools (IETs) and online learning modules designed to enhance (not replace) hands-on training. This particular IET, entitled Preparing for the Professional Interview, provides guidance for job interview preparation. Topics addressed include appropriate dress and appearance, etiquette, and common interview questions.

From Advanced Technology Environmental and Energy Center (ATEEC):

Best Practices Guide for Developing Educational Programs

atecentral.net/downloads/1187/Best_Practices-withCCLicense.pdf

This 60-page document, created by the Advanced Technology Environmental and Energy Center, serves as a guide for developing educational programs surrounding environmental and energy technology. This guide provides an introduction and focuses on strategies individuals can implement to both analyze a program already in place and to design and develop a new program. Also included with the document are supplementary resources (additional readings, websites, and links) that can help make the process of developing educational programs easier.

Community Connection

Welcome to ATE for New Grantees

ATE Central would like to take this opportunity to welcome new grantees to the ATE community! With the ATE PI Conference just a few short weeks away, projects and centers will get the chance to connect with one another - sharing experiences, collaborating, and learning together. For those of you who are new to the ATE community, there are a variety of resources to help support the work of your project or center - from evaluation to dissemination.

EvaluATE

EvaluATE acts as the evaluation resource center for the ATE program. They provide a variety of useful resources and activities for grantees related to evaluation. Check out their site to visit the resource library or sign up for an upcoming webinar.

ATETV

Visit this site to find a diverse range of freely available video content - both full segments and clips - that highlight a variety of ATE-related topics from automotive to nanotechnology.

ATE Central

Our own ATE Central site provides support on outreach and dissemination tools and techniques, archiving support, an ATE events calendar, and much more. For more ways that ATE Central can assist your project or center, be sure to check out the ATE Grantees section of the What Can ATE Central Do for Me? page on ATE Central.

Getting Started Workshop

New community members should also make sure to check out the "Getting Started" workshop at this year's PI conference. This workshop has recently been restructured and is recommended for all principal investigators, co-principal investigators, and other team members new to ATE. The workshop will cover ATE program issues, financial and grant management issues, evaluation, and more. ATE Central will be presenting at the session, so feel free to ask any questions you might have there or come visit us at our showcase booth (#2).

ATE Success Tips: Websites

Have you considered creating a visualization from data collected from a report, your project or center’s website, or social media feed? Visualizations are a great way to draw attention to key components and messages derived from data, but it can be challenging and time consuming to know where to start and which tools to use.

There are many free, open-source tools available to create data visualizations. If you’re interested in creating a graph or chart, you may want to check out RawGraphs, which is a tool that allows users to create graphs in a variety of designs and colors and offers an array of layouts. Data can be uploaded from csv and tsv files or copied and pasted from other applications (such as MS Excel or Word). Google Charts and Google Data are additional free data visualization options that may be especially useful for those who want to store projects in Google Drive or collaborate with colleagues.

If your project or center is thinking of creating a timeline of events or occurrences, consider looking into TimelineJS. Timelines are completely customizable and can incorporate lots of different media. This tool works especially well for presenting chronological narratives.

Finally, if you are interested in performing a textual analysis, you may want to check out Voyant Tools. This tool allows users to upload or paste text to create word clouds, trend graphs, and a variety of visualizations for textual correlations, recurring phrases, and much more.

Did You Know?

Incarcerated individuals on average have lower educational attainment than the general population, but education can play a very important part in their re-entry into society. The American Association of Community Colleges recently published a fact sheet explaining how much prison education has shown to reduce recidivism and increase the likelihood of employment upon release.

Select STEM Education Resources

A few online STEM resources from outside of ATE, that you may find of interest:

Share Your Science: Blogging for Magazines, Newspapers, and More

www.aldacenter.org/aklc/build-skills/online-courses/aldablogging2017s

Current and future scientists and engineers looking to hone their communication skills may be interested in Share Your Science: Blogging for Magazines, Newspapers, and More. Launched in 2017, Share Your Science is a free five-part recorded webinar series created by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University and Scientific American. The sessions are approximately one hour in length and are led by science communication experts, such as Mariette DiChristina (Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American and Nature) and Ben Lillie (co-founder of The Story Collider). Topics include connecting with your audience, storytelling, and how to use current events to draw readers into your science story. The need for scientists to be able to communicate about their work with lay audiences is becoming increasingly apparent, and Share Your Science offers valuable strategies to help fill this need.

Bedtime Math

bedtimemath.org

Reading bedtime stories to children is a common strategy to boost kids' literacy--but what about doing the same for math? Parents hoping to prevent math anxiety in their children may find Bedtime Math to be a formidable ally. This resource offers more than two thousand short math puzzles designed as fun activities for parents to do with their kids at bedtime. New puzzles are added daily and each features "a cool fun fact, followed by math riddles at different levels so everyone can jump in." Parents can subscribe for free to get new daily Bedtime Math puzzles via email or they can download a free app (available for iOS and Android devices) where they can access the puzzles in both English and Spanish. Bedtime Math also offers the "Crazy 8s Math Club!" a kit of free resources designed to be used for fun after-school recreational math clubs. Bedtime Math was created by Laura Overdeck, a mom with degrees in astrophysics and public policy who loved playing with numbers as a child. Bedtime Math's activities have been used in studies by the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University, who both found their offerings to be beneficial.

Aquatic Invasions

www.aquaticinvasions.net

The ecosystems of many water bodies around the world are under threat from aquatic invasive species. Scholars interested in this pervasive problem may want to check out the international peer-reviewed journal Aquatic Invasions. Established in 2006, this open-access journal offers readers "academic research of biological invasions in both inland and coastal water ecosystems from around the world." Aquatic Invasions publishes scientific research focusing on topics such as the population dynamics, dispersal patterns, and ecological impacts of non-native species. Recent articles include studies in the Netherlands, the Gulf of Maine, and Croatia. This journal is published by the Regional Euro-Asian Biological Invasions Centre in Finland, and Kit Magellan of the University of Hong Kong is its editor-in-chief, supported by an international editorial board. Aquatic Invasions is one of the official journals for the International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Alien Species (INVASIVESNET), and it is indexed by databases such as EBSCO, Thomson Reuters, and DOAJ.

Do you have some great STEM resources you'd like to share with ATE Central? Email us with your ideas at info@atecentral.net.

ATE Events

Upcoming Events
– Info New Workshops for Fall 2018: Mapping with Drones (two sessions) Blacksburg, VA
– Eng 2018 Fall Professional Development Course: Electric-Drive Vehicles Technology Dayton, OH
Eng Climate Change in Alaska: Impacts on the Entomofauna Online
Info CAE Cyber Security Virtual Career Fair Online
– Ag/Env 2018 Wine Chemistry Workshop Springfield, MO
Nano Remote Access To Nanotechnology Online
Nano National Nanotechnology day Lincoln, NE
– Eng National Career Pathways Network (NCPN) Annual Conference Louisville, KY
– Gen Career Pathways: Creating Connections, Building Futures Louisville, KY
– Eng WoPhyS 2018 Lincoln, NE
Nano Discover Engineering Days Lincoln, NE
Mfg Manufacturing Day Expo Utica, New York
– Info New Workshops for Fall 2018: Mapping with Drones (two sessions) Richmond, VA
Gen 5th Annual Visualizing Science Policy 20x20 & Resource Fair Washington, DC
– Gen Washington Science Teachers Association Fall 2018 Annual Conference Bellingham, WA
Info GeoFest 2018 - Celebrating 30 Years of the NYGA! Rochester, NY
– Gen STEM Fest 2018 Sandy, UT
– Gen ATE PI 2018 Conference Washington, DC
– Ag/Env Wine Sensory Analysis Workshop St. Louis, MO
Gen How to Communicate Science to the Public — Or Die Trying Washington, DC
Info AR GIS Users Forum & OPENGATE Outreach Partnership Conference Little Rock, AR
Info OPENGATE Partnership Conference Little Rock, AR
– Mfg STEM Guitar Summit Birmingham, AL
– Ag/Env 2018 Wine Sensory Analysis Workshop Dobson, NC
– Mfg Materials in STEM 2018 Birmingham, AL
– Gen 2018 Leadership Seminar in Science & Technology Policy Washington, DC
Eng ESC Region 2 Technology Conference 2018 Corpus Christi, Texas
– Mfg FABTECH 2018 Atlanta, GA
– Bio/Chem National Association of Biology Teachers 2018 Conference San Diego, CA
Gen Project Access Workshop at FSCJ Jacksonville, FL
Bio/Chem NIH Community College Day Bethesda, MD
– Gen CCURI Fall 2018 Colloquium Glendale, AZ
– Eng Auto STEAM Days Warren, MI
Eng Explore Careers in Manufacturing and Technology Warren, MI
Gen Promoting Student Success in Math at FSCJ Jacksonville, FL
– Info Winter Working Connections 2018 Online

For more events, please visit the ATE Central Events page or, if you have any upcoming events that you would like posted on ATE Central or in the ATE Central Connection, please submit them online.

To add a continuously-updated list of ATE and STEM education events to your website, use the ATE Event Widget.

News & Reminders

ATE Principal Investigators Conference

October 24-26, 2018
Omni Shoreham Hotel
Washington, DC

The American Association of Community Colleges, with the support of the National Science Foundation, will hold the 25th National ATE Principal Investigators’ Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. Visit the PI Conference site to learn more!

NEW ATE Program Solicitation
NSF 18-571 (Replaces NSF 17-568)

Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.m. submitter's local time):
    October 15, 2018
    October 03, 2019
    October 01, 2020

Some key revisions to take note of as you read this new solicitation include a later submission date this year - giving applicants a bit of extra time to craft their proposal. Changes have been made to the ATE Centers track, including an increase in the maximum budget for a center proposal which has been raised to $7.5 million over five years, with the possibility of one renewal. Centers may then choose to transition to a resource center. Budget numbers for resource centers have also been raised - with the maximum being $1.65 million over three years, also with the possibility of one renewal.

Another shift is a change to the Small Projects New to ATE track – this is now a fourth track within the ATE program with a maximum budget of $300,000 over three years.

Visit NSF's ATE page for an overview of the program, links to recent awards, and access to the solicitation, or atecentral.net/rfp to go straight to the solicitation on NSF's site.

Professional Development Workshops hosted by the Regional Center for Nuclear Education & Training (RCNET)

Eliminating Math as a Barrier to Entry and Success

Description: Math is not only a barrier to completion in community colleges; it is also a barrier to entry for selective enrollment programs across the nation specifically for minority and low socio-economic groups. This workshop describes a successful novel approach to overcome the math barrier for a cohort of underserved student and how that pilot led to a complete redesign of math across an entire department and can be replicated at your school.

This workshop has two dates and two different locations – please contact RCNET PI Kevin Cooper at the below contact information with questions and to register.

Date: October 11-12, 2018
Location: Fort Pierce, FL

Contact Information: Kevin Cooper, PI RCNET; kcooper@irsc.edu; 772-462-7546

Would you like copies of the ATE Impacts book?

Book orders and general inquiries about ATE Impacts 2018-2019: Twenty-Five Years of Advancing Technician Education can be emailed to info@ateimpacts.net.

Archiving your deliverables with ATE Central is now easier than ever!

Upload your curriculum, professional development materials, or other deliverables created with ATE funding directly to the ATE Central resource portal via the new archive submission form.

Can CWIS software help support your project goals?

CWIS is open source software, created with NSF funding, that can help your project or center showcase resources online. It's free and very easy to use. The latest version (CWIS 4.1.1) was released on and is available for download on the Scout site. Please email cwis@scout.wisc.edu if you have any questions or would like a quick tour of its features!

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