Preparation for more classes continues

This week saw limited action due to a third orientation session where I volunteered as an adviser.  Planninig, however, continued on the next round of continuing education offerings that I will be performing before the end of July. 

The courses are going to be offered during three days and cover a theme similar to my previous sessions.  I will repeat one session "Web 2.0 Tools for Educators".  A new session is being planned that introduces teachers to the concept of developing an online personal learning network, or PLN, of peers from all over the world using Twitter and Facebook.  Lastly, I will be delivering a course designed to introduce teachers to webquests as well as developing their own wikis for their classrooms.

As my practicum comes to a close, I have begun to reflect on the dynamic nature of outreach, continuing education, and economic development activities undertaken by institutions of higher learning.  These activities give an institution the flexibility in developing new revenue streams and also the power to market the intellectual capital they possess to the wider community.  Most importantly, though, the activities of these outreach programs meets the vital mission of all colleges and universities, to educate and remake society in order to maintain a solid labor force.

Three days of training

Last week was my first experience in training others through Continuing Education.  The courses were designed to help K-12 educators learn how to evaluate web applications, use Google Docs, and make their own websites using Google Sites.  The courses were taught over three days and lasted 5 hours each.

This experience brought home to me the value of institutions of higher learning in performing outreach to professional communities.  When individuals leave the world of Bachelor's or graduate degree programs and enter the workforce, their need to continue learning new skills and techniques never ends, since the demands of the workplace are not static.  Colleges and universities provide an environment where training can take place at lower cost to employers.  In this way a skilled workforce is maintained and the country's competitive edge is sharpened.

Implementation Week

This week, like all of the previous weeks, was another busy one.  Our meeting on Monday resulted in me receiving the go-ahead to begin the client survey as well as beginning to prepare handouts for the continuing education courses that are scheduled for Monday through Wednesday next week.  In addition to these tasks I was told to schedule a pilot brief online "survival" sessions at NEMCC's Corinth and New Albany sites during the last week of July.

Work for this week was delayed on Tuesday due to orientation for university parallel (a.k.a. transfer) students.  This task was part of my normal faculty duties, so no time was spent in the performance of my practicum.

Wednesday was dedicated to finishing all of the handouts for my continuing education courses.  I employed one of my favorite multi-media applications, Aviary, to capture and edit screen shots to be incorporated within quick reference guides for the students in the courses.

My final day this week, yesterday, was spent implementing the client survey for the division.  I had already constructed the survey using Survey Monkey and began sending invitations to hundreds of people within Tishimingo county. 

Upcoming CEU courses, client survey, and researrch planning

This week saw the final planning and scheduling for the CEU courses that I will be teaching this summer.  Three courses were scheduled for the last week of June, each course lasting 5 hours and worth 0.5 CEU credit to K-12 educators enrolled.  The courses were taken from the outlines that I have already submitted to introduce teachers from the surrounding counties/municipalities to Web 2.0 applications for use in the classroom. 

Also this week I was told to present the client survey that I developed previously to the Division at the next staff meeting this coming Monday.  Following the presentation the survey willo be sent to various clients within the district for completion.

Finally, my experiences in this practicum have caused me to reflect on the need to develop a research proposal to ascertain the impact of non-professional credentialing on community college students.  This project is currently in the planning stages but, in my opinion, has the potential to provide valuable data in a seemingly neglected area of education research.

Training and development, a vital part of economic developoment

In my experiences this week I continued examining the role of colleges and university in outreach to the business community.  I gave a brief overview of the purpose of the Workforce Training and Economic Development division at NEMCC in a previous post, but that brief intro only gave a small window into the larger role of institutions of higher learning in assisting industry in continued growth.

I have discovered that many institutions of higher learning, including my own, offer training to company employees in quality control/management practices, particularly the approach adopted by Toyota known as Lean.  Lean Manufacturing, in its various iterations, centers on the elimination of wasteful practices and is intended to improve every aspect of an organization through teaching employees to examine how problems/processes flow from the start of a process to the end product.  The training of this approach to quality control entails a rigorous series of workshops that usually culminate in the completion of a project at a company.

The point that has become a vital point of outreach/revenue for colleges and universities in recent years is to offer Lean training to clients within the larger community.  The role of the institution is to facilitate on-site training in Lean techniques followed by the awarding of non-credit credentials as proof of a recognized professional certification for a company's employees.  Thus, the mission of the university/community college to serve the general public is fulfilled in addition to the building of crucial industrial partners for future collaborations.

Looking for funding sources...the never-ending quest

This week, although shortened by the Memorial Day holiday, was still very productive, especially in introducing me to the complexities of program financing.  Due to the rapid process of development and implementation required in creating workforce training courses, the location of funding is crucial to success.

To this end, I spent many hours this week combing through requests for proposals (aka, RFPs) through the US government's site grants.gov as well as grant guidelines for private foundations such as the Kresge Foundation.  From this work I have concluded that finding the grant that "fits" a proposal is as important as the content of the proposal. 

Workforce Conference, State of the Region, and Lucheon

This week started with attending the Mississippi Corridor Consortium Workforce Summit, hosted at the Mayhew, MS campus of East Mississippi Community College.  The summit spanned two days (Tuesday, May 24 to Wednesday, May 25th) and was focused on the discussion of current practices, issues, and relationships with other outreach organizations.

The initial meeting of the summit outlined some of the issues being faced by workforce training organizations, a fixture of the community outreach operations of the community colleges within the state and the Consortium. Special emphasis was placed on the need to tranisition from the traditional model of workforce development, where workers are taught basic skills and released into the workforce without follow-up, to a high-performance training model that involves a competency-based approach to education where skillsets are verified through the attainment of nationally recognized credentials.  Through this appraoch the workforce training activities produce skilled production workers with multiple competencies in key areas desired by manufacturers.

The sessions that I attended covered issues ranging from adult basic education to assessment of programs to products offered through the NIST-Department of Commerce sponsored program known as the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).   The wide variety of issues and missions highlighted the ever-changing environment faced by personnel in providing post-secondary education to workers while simultaneously fulfilling the economic development goals required by communities and corporate clients.

Thursday of this week I traveled to the Bancorp South Conference Center in Tupelo, MS to attend the annual State of the Region meeting.  The purpose of this meeting was to disseminate information regarding the demographic changes, educational challenges, and economic development trends occurring in the northeastern section of Mississippi.  The data was presented for the general public, but the information was of potential value for institutions of higher education for the design of curricula as well as the focus of community outreach.

The final event of the week was an existing business appreciation luncheon for manufacturers in Alcorn county.  The businesses represented at the luncheon ranged from small businesses to the Fortune 500 giant Kiumberly-Clark.  The affair was relatively informal and gave attendees an opportunity to network.  The presence of the NEMCC Workforce personnel at this event was to maintain visibility with local politicians and business owners in order to maintain relationships for future interaction.