Pac-Tec II: Pacific Technological Education Project The future of the United States depends on our producing well-educated and talented science and engineering technicians. However, student interest in technical fields has declined; and students in traditionally underrepresented groups comprise 65 percent of the student population, continue to be severely underrepresented in these fields. The Phase I of the Pac-TEC Project is a grassroots, collaborative network of 24 faculty from eleven schools, from middle school grades through university level. In Phase I of Pac-TEC , teachers are defining learning and teaching styles and preferences typical of many people in the underrepresented groups. From this definition, the project is building and testing solutions for classroom teachers--teaching methods that are inclusive but that do not require major changes in course content, but instead, revolutionize new teaching methods within existing content. Phase II of Pac-TEC project is expanding the network of participating teachers and other professionals who together focus on disseminating working solutions. This project is also broadening its research, establishing a center that coordinates and disseminates information, training preservice teachers, presenting models for authentic student assessment tools, and producing a second edition of its innovative manual with national distribution.
