Transcript Document

Vocational Education in the Silicon Valley:
Innovation in the Present Tense
San Jose
•Located on the western coast of the United
States, in the San Francisco peninsula.
•The first European settlement in California-known as Pueblo de San Jose in 1777.
•Incorporated as the “City of San Jose “ in 1850,
the first state Capitol of California.
•Bigger than San Francisco.
An area of California centering
around the city of San Jose,
radiating north along the east and
west sides of the of the San
Francisco Bay, where making silicon
semiconductor chips replaced the
fruit orchards of the past.
•Located close to downtown San Jose
•Not far from San Jose State University
•Serves 10,000 day and night time students
•Established more than 80 years ago
•An ideal place for vocational education
Traditional Vocational Education
•The cornerstone of our educational
offerings.
•Supplies a steady stream of students.
•Allows for risk-taking in other
programs.
Cosmetology
•People will always need their hair
done.
•Curriculum is state mandated.
•Hours and certification standards
are set by the state.
The computer industry
•Started somewhat traditionally
•Began with introductory courses
and slowly added new pieces as
industry evolved.
•Industry standards were widely
adopted.
•Certificates (Microsoft, Cisco
network) offered promising
employment
Dot Com Boom & Y2K
•In 1994 offered 8 summer introductory
courses.
•By 2000 offered 28 sessions of the same
course, with 200 students fighting for 40 seats
in each classroom.
•Eighteen-year old high school students
without a college education were making
$120,000 a year.
Dot Com Crash/Y2K Fizzle
•Every high school in California
offers introductory and advanced
computer training.
• City College enrollment in CIS
plummets, declining to about 20
students per class.
New computer technologies
evolve.
Have to know when to hold them,
when to pick up bold new ones, and
when to fold them.
Innovation in the Present
Tense
•On average, develop 15 new courses a year
in different areas of computer operation, from
encryption to dot-net technologies.
•On average deactivate equal number of
courses every year.
•Now only offer 12 high-level computer
courses versus the 28 introductory sections of
2000.
New Challenges
•How do you educate individuals for this
rapidly changing world?
•What happens when an industry moves
offshore or dies?
•How do you train for the new fusion of
computer science, medicine, and business
technology?
•How do you deal with the convergences
in nanotechnology, biotechnology,
information technology, and cognitive
science
Understand industry.
•Create partnerships.
•Establish advisory boards.
•Develop faculty internships.
•Stay in touch with students who
have taken jobs.
•Build good, mutually beneficial
relationships.
Advisory Boards
Help us:
•understand industry and the work culture within
the industry
•set up competency-based standards
•anticipate industry demand for workers
•anticipate emerging technology
Approval Process
Standard course approval at our
college usually takes from nine
months to a year.
Industry needs call for immediate
action.
Changes affect workers.
Companies disappear, industries
scale back, people lose their jobs,
and graduates can no longer find
jobs in the field in which they
prepared.
What do students need change?
•Need solid basic skills (math &
language).
•Need solid basic technical skills.
•Need good interpersonal skills.
•Need good communication skills.
•Need to be prepared for lifelong
learning.
How do we help students
meet those needs?
Infuse basic skills, interpersonal skills, and
communication skills into the curriculum (e.g.,
students work in groups, work on projects, make
presentations).
Offer flexible learning (e.g., weekend or evening
classes, short intensive classes, on-line, classes,
modules).
Keep students informed (e.g., e-mail, website,
catalog, brochures)
Examples of adapting to our
rapidly changing industries:
three cases.
Advanced Manufacturing
Technology Training Center
•Initiated by faculty member in a paid
summer internship at Intel Corporation.
•Understood the need for clean room
product development & opportunities
for students.
•Realized it was too expensive.
Virtual Center
•Intel developed the technology used in the
classroom and continued to offer technical
support throughout the development.
•Also gave financial support to develop a
campus Clean Room, computers, and
simulation software.
•Industry motivated by the benefit they would
receive from well-trained workers.
“Technology made the Silicon Valley, make your
future in Technology.”
Courses developed include:
General Electronics I and II
Electronics Math I and II
Semiconductor Manufacturing
SMT Tool Sets
Digital Circuits
System Troubleshooting
Robotics/ Automation
Statistical Process Control
Degree requirements of Chemistry and Physics.
California is known for its
earthquakes. Things do not
stay settled for long.
Company takeovers, market
fluctuation, a shifting of priorities,
and the relocation of
manufacturing centers to low
wage regions of the world lead to
a decline in enrollment.
All is not lost.
Importance of clean rooms.
Change in HVAC.
Case II
Photonics/Laser program:
culture clash
Need to understand each other’s
culture—especially different time
lines.
Eliminating a rigid dean.
Learning to trust—even share
trade secrets.
Top laser facility developed.
Faculty member interned at three
companies.
New course developed.
Students easily found good jobs.
Economic changes: demand
plummets along with
enrollments.
Laser faculty seek other industry
potential. Industry is now
developing polymer solar cells,
color conversion systems, liquid
defense lasers, flat panel displays,
and applications for surgery.
Case III: Polysomnographic
Technology I (Sleep Medicine
Technician)
The technology of tracking the
body during sleep, diagnosing,
and treating life-threatening
abnormalities is now involving
physicians of several specialties.
Pulmonologists, Cardiologists, Internal
Medicine, and Pediatricians are a few of
the medical specialists opening Sleep
Medicine Clinics throughout the world.
The Board of Registered
Polysomnographic Technology reports
only 7000 Registered Polysomnographic
Technicians ( RPSGTs) in the world.
Sleep Medicine Technicians monitor brain, heart,
respiration, and muscle functions during the four levels of
sleep; use therapeutic interventions and calibrate these
interventions.
Course work includes: anatomy and physiology, medical
terminology, history of sleep medicine, legal and ethical
roles, pathology and nosology of sleep disorders,
physiology of hypoxia, sleep/wake rhythms, sleep
disordered breathing, instrumentation and frequency/
voltage, monitoring techniques, therapeutic modalities,
EEG, EOG, EMG, ECG tracking, PAP calibration,
unusual and unexpected events, and computer report
generation, storage, retrieval.
Sleep Technician is an example of the fusion of
computer science, medicine and business
technology.
The monitoring system software, an evolving
science, is being developed using computer
technology and medicine.
The technicians can also become involved in
the business end of insurance billing
justification and selling the products used to
treat the sleep disorders.
Program planning had to address many issues.
Program development was spearheaded by a
part time faculty member recently certified as a
RPSGT.
She initiated the original program investigation,
realizing recent Health Science curriculum
changes at the College would dovetail with the
Sleep Medicine needs.
Implementation challenges
solved with partnerships.
Physicians offered:
use of their labs for student practica,
to be guest lecturers,
flex time for their staff to be trained,
installation of software on SJCC
computers.
What have we learned?
Need to maintain a core of traditional
programs. (e.g., cosmetology, police &
fire training, nursing, construction, etc.)
Need to accept that curriculum
developed may not be successful,
may never even be used.
Need to trust companies to develop
competency-based standards and
encourage them to adapt them
industry-wide.
We have to do the following:
Find common threads that cut across more than one
kind of industry (need for clean room environment in
almost all high tech industries)
Make it easy for adult students to become educated—
offer courses on weekends, use distance learning,
break courses into modules, etc.
Make sure that students are aware of new course
development and rely on a lot repeat business.
Infuse communication skills (oral and written) into all
technology courses (require group projects, use of email, and presentations conducted in clear manner).
Still have many questions.
How do you deal with tenured faculty whose
industry has changed, and they have lost the
desire to keep up to date?
How do you use adjunct faculty for new
courses, and expect them to take the time to
build relationships with industry and spend
time on curriculum development?
How do you train new faculty to teach,
especially those from industry who are only
teaching one or two courses?
How do you compete for faculty with
industry?
How do you convince the fast
growing, competitive companies to
invest in education when they are not
sure of their own existence three or
fours years down the line?
What does it mean for us when we teach people
who have to go back to school and change careers
multiple times?
How do we prepare someone for a lifetime of work
in this kind of environment?
How can we make transitions easier?
How can we be more efficient with both their time
and with the resources we need to address these
changes?
In summary,
a rapid pace of innovation and invention now drive the
educational process in the SiliconValley. City College
has adapted to the Valley’s work culture, sensitive trade
secrets, and talent wars. The College has been able to
compete and develop curriculum, but like the students
we serve, we must continue to learn how to adapt and
improve our ability to remain relevant and useful to
those we serve.