Technological Education for Advanced Manufacturing Northeast Ohio has more than 7,000 manufacturing firms and ranks as one of the largest concentration of manufacturers in the world. The region is experiencing a work force crisis; manufacturers are now struggling to find appropriately skilled workers, technicians, and engineers. On the other hand, the region has a large population of undereducated, underexperienced, unemployed or underemployed residents, predominately minority, who are ill prepared to take advantage of employment opportunities in manufacturing, primarily because of skill deficiencies. This team is developing the Technical Education for Advanced Manufacturing (TEAM) project which integrates the manufacturing education efforts of ten regional partners and establishes a seamless approach to manufacturing education that addresses the needs of a target audience of high school, community college, and university students as well as the unemployed or underemployed or undereducated residents of the region. The heart of this project is the extension of Cleveland's Manufacturing Learning Center (MLC), a hands-on educational model which has been highly successful at the community college and university level, downward to include not only high school students and teachers but to the undereducated residents of the region. MLC activities are being expanded to include two additional community colleges, Lakeland and Lorain County Community College, and their associated Tech Prep programs. Faculty and students from the partnering organizations team with MLC associates at Cleveland State and the community colleges to work on productivity-improving process and product development projects sponsored by more than fifty regional companies under the mentorship of industrial personnel or MLC associates. Additional goals are to: 1. Design and implement a model for professional development of university and community college faculty and secondary teachers, especially math and science, that focuses on cross-institutional mentoring relationships and hands-on team experiences in industry sponsored projects. 2. Upgrade the manufacturing curriculum at all partner institutions and infuse it with real-world manufacturing applications and ensure seamless progression and articulation through the partner institutions. 3. Evaluate the curriculum development and reform efforts in all partnering organizations and validate the best practices at additional sites among the partners. This includes the Urban Systemic Initiative within the Cleveland Public Schools. 4. Create computer-simulation instructional materials that can be utilized at any level of learning--high school, community college, and university--by utilizing input and applications from industrial partners.
