Soft skills enhanced project-based pedagogy in the community college reflecting apprenticeship and industry need
- Conference
- Location
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Middletown, Pennsylvania
- Publication Date
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November 11, 2022
- Start Date
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November 11, 2022
- End Date
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February 25, 2024
- Page Count
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12
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--44684
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/44684
- Download Count
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120
Paper Authors
Raymond K.F. Lam The City University of New York, Queensborough Community College
Assistant professor of Engineering Technology Department of Queensborough Community College in Bayside, New York. He holds a Doctor of Science degree in Materials Science & Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Master of Scienc
Dugwon Seo Queensborough Community College
Dr. Dugwon Seo is an Assistant Professor in Engineering Technology Department at Queensborough Community College (QCC). She received her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering in 2014 from the City College of New York. Dr. Seo has participated in several projects to promote under-represented groups including women students and Hispanic minorities in the technology discipline since her appointment in 2015. She has contributed to increasing women students’ interest in technology by offering 3-D printing and coding experience workshops for two years funded by Cornell University and CUNY Women in Technology (WiTNY) award. She also has mentored Hispanic Ph.D. students to assist their professoriate career achievement through a five-year NSF awarded The Hispanic Alliance for the Graduate Education and the Professoriate on Environmental Sciences and Engineering (H-AGEP) program in collaboration with City College of New York and El Paso University, Texas. She has mentored undergraduate students with research projects through CUNY Community College Research Scholar Programs (CRSP) and Research Experience Undergraduate (REU). Dr. Seo has a research interest in the use of remote sensing technology applications to solve problems in the modeling of land surface processes, numerical weather prediction, and global climate models.
Merlinda Drini
Dr. Merlinda Drini joined the Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York in September 2011 and currently holds an Associate Professor position in the Engineering Technology department. She earned her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, June 2009, from The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. She is a recipient of the awards in mentoring various students on undergraduate research projects. Her research areas are computer networking, wireless communications and information security.
Guozhen Tony An CUNY Queensborough Community College
Guozhen An is assistant professor of the Engineering Technology Department at Queensborough Community College of CUNY. He received BS in Computer Science from Jilin University in China, MA in Computer Science from Queens College CUNY, and Ph.D in Computer Science from the Graduate Center of CUNY. He worked as researcher at SONY, AOL, and CUNY, and also has many years of teaching experience at Queens College, York College, Mercy College and Queensborough Community College. His research interests are in Natural Language Processing, Spoken Language Processing, Speech Recognition/Analysis/Synthesis, Machine Learning and Computational Linguistics. He published in various international conferences, such as Interspeech, NAACL, Cognitive and ACM conference.
Abstract
Apprenticeship is a way of learning that combines traditional classroom learning and on-the-job training experience. New York City Jobs CEO Council (https://nyjobsceocouncil.org/) provides an apprenticeship program to community colleges in the City University of New York by incorporating businesses and education leaders to establish a bridge between employers’ needs and practical job training for community college students. The authors of this paper have participated in the NYC Job CEO Council’s Educator Program which provides opportunities to interconnect community college faculty and various employers directly to fill the gap between employers’ demands and college teaching. The employers pointed out that new college graduates lack of soft skills including oral and written communication, digital fluency, problem-solving, critical thinking, time management, leadership, and teamwork. These soft skills are also required for students who participate in the apprenticeship program. However, teaching technical knowledge is the general and primary focus of the conventional methods in engineering technology colleges, and teaching soft skills is mostly not included in the curriculum and assessment. Therefore, preparing engineering technology students for apprenticeship and their future career start is essential. The authors learned that project-based pedagogy is an avenue for teaching soft skills to students. Thus, we designed and implemented the project-based pedagogy including soft skill training. In this paper, multiple project-based projects in different disciplines of engineering technology for both in-person and virtual classroom settings are presented including methodologies of teaching soft skills, pedagogical limitations in a community college setting, assessment, and learning outcomes.
Lam, R. K., & Seo, D., & Drini, M., & An, G. T. (2022, November), Soft skills enhanced project-based pedagogy in the community college reflecting apprenticeship and industry need Paper presented at ASEE Middle Atlantic 2022 Fall Conference, Middletown, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--44684
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