The Connecticut College of Technology’s Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing, a National Science Foundation Center of Excellence, hosted the Engineering Technology Challenge Program’s 2020 Summer Teacher Virtual Workshop. Past workshops have been held in-person, but there was a shift to a virtual yet still hands-on workshop due to the COVID-19 pandemics this year.
This exciting four-day workshop provided fourteen high school and community college educators from across the United States the opportunity to connect with peers during the online workshop. The program has been very highly rated by all the teachers and faculty who have participated in the program over the years.
The purpose of the workshop is to help educators learn how to instruct students in developing essential professional skills as well as providing technology related experiences to integrate into STEM classroom and lab environments. The teambuilding, professional, and technical skills presented in the Program are designed to be directly applicable to your classroom.
Professional skills topics were taught by certified professional skills and business coach, John Birch, covered included team building, DISC behavioral profiles, leadership, and emotional intelligence. Technical skills were taught by Gateway Community College faculty, Eric Flynn, Jacob Jackson, and Kit Panasy; Manchester Community College professor Mehrdad Faezi; and Bloomfield High School teacher Andrew Angle. Technology topics included an overview of advanced manufacturing, SolidWorks CAD software, 3D printing, and the coding of mini-drones. Each participant received a mini-drone to assemble and code and an educational copy of SolidWorks software for the hands-on elements of the workshop.
Participants were invited to create their own curriculum modules based on any material they learned to implement at their home institutions.