Promoting Access To Technical Education for Non-traditional Computer Informations Systems Students

A workforce crisis exists in the Information Technology (IT) industry. Many jobs go unfilled nationally, regionally and locally because the supply of trained graduates from institutions of higher education does not meet industry's demand for workers. This urgent need for IT professionals and technicians requires innovative instructional solutions that will expand and diversify the IT workforce.

The objective of this three-year project is to retain and graduate non-traditional community college (two-year) IT students who are being lost to the field because they are alienated, intimidated or excluded by traditional IT teaching methods and culture. Applying the results of recent research in science and engineering pedagogy, this project creates and evaluates instructional methods intended to work for non-traditional IT students, instead of against them. This project creates educational materials for students and professional development materials for faculty.

The activities include:

- developing and implementing a new program to assess personality and learning styles of IT students and a program of advising based on that assessment;

- developing and delivering new curricula incorporating alternative learning strategies into key introductory IT courses;

- developing and instituting special workshops and study/support groups aimed at non-traditional IT students; and

- developing and delivering workshops to assist IT faculty to learn about and implement alternative teaching strategies for the target population.

Expected outcomes for nontraditional IT students are:

- improved academic performance;

- increased retention in IT;

- increased numbers of IT majors; and

- improved graduation rates.

Expected outcomes for IT faculty are:

- a more positive attitude toward a variety of learning styles,

- increased knowledge about alternative learning styles, and

- implementation of alternative teaching strategies.

The project will be tested at two additional community college sites in Year 3.

Deliverables from this project include:

- the non-traditional curricula for two introductory IT courses;

- the student assessment/advising program for non-traditional students;

- the non-traditional student success workshops; and

- the workshops to assist faculty in developing teaching strategies for non-traditional students.