The Society of Manufacturing Engineers has documented the need for qualified technicians and manufacturing practitioners, at the same time the number of TAC/ABET accredited associate degree programs has decreased. The impact of our project is intended to be national in scope and could change the delivery of educational content by adding another point on the continuum between pure face-to-face and pure web-based. Our National Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Education (NCE/AME) will lead the development and testing of a distributed hybrid instructional delivery process as a method for increasing the number of students in Technology Accreditation Commission of the Accrediting Body for Engineering and Technology (TAC/ABET) accredited associate degree programs by providing greater student geographic access. Our proposed distributed-hybrid instructional delivery method uses face-to-face modular instructional while at the same time provides the ability for the small groups to function as part of a larger class even with temporal and geographical shifts. The overall goal of this project is to develop, test, and evaluate the effectiveness of new web-based primary instructional materials, leading to a certificate in Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) that utilizes our distributed-hybrid delivery model.
