Institution-Level Reform of Technician Education at a Two-year Technical College

New and converging technologies require technicians who can flexibly adapt their knowledge and skills across disciplines. Specific occupational programs must provide creatively cross-linked offerings that respond to the changing nature of work and are grounded in the findings of teaching and learning. This planning grant accelerates Madison Area Technical College's effort to reformulate, streamline and update the science, technology, engineering and mathematics related programming to meet the needs of the employers. Institutional level reform also provides an opportunity to rethink current recruitment practices. The planning creates learning communities of technical college and university faculty and employers to assess the impacts of the changes in the workplace on current and future learning systems at the college, to build faculty expertise in the converging technologies and to provide a forum for teaching and learning in them. The College is a pilot for changes in the Wisconsin Technical College System, which controls curricula.