2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

WIP - Certification for Adult Learners and Industry Professionals for Continuous Professional Development
Learning never ends and there is no age limit to grow yourself. At ****, we have experienced this many times. The students of Engineering Technology (ETEC) department at **** has always been first generation or working professionals or returning students after years of gap. We value this a lot and acknowledge the need for it to mitigate future skill needs. The Engineering Technology department is working tirelessly to introduce new educational opportunities for industry professionals via some certification programs. Few examples are NOCTI certification for FANUC robot operating license; National Center for Construction and Education Research (NCCER) certification for different modules; Agile certification for industry professionals to grow etc. The goal is to address the challenges faced by the adult learners and working professionals for continuous professional development.
NOCTI will work as third-party certification agency for FANUC robot operator licenses. The primary author is FANUC certified instructor and can certify the students enrolled in his “Industrial Robotics” class plus any adult learners. There is a training site in Houston, TX; however very limited seats and majority of the time the trainees from industry or others must travel out of state for the required certification and training. Through this initiative, the ETEC department at **** is trying to provide alternate site for training and certification exam though NOCTI to build competent and credible workforces. The primary author is recognized as site coordinator for NOCTI and can oversee the certification exam and issue required certificates for people who will pass the online/in-person exam.
NCCER is a not-for-profit education foundation, developed with the support of more than 125 construction CEOs and academic leaders. Over the hears the program has evolved and now have curricula for more than 70 craft and maintenance areas and offered in over 6,000 NCCER-accredited training and assessment locations across the United States. Once again, ETEC department have multiple NCCER certified instructor including a couple authors of this paper. The goal is to introduce full or partial modules in various hands-on courses being taught in our curriculum and thus giving the students a chance to be recognized for specific skill area. Their records are tracked through NCCER’s Registry System that allows organizations and companies to track the qualifications of the employee via a secure database.
Virtually all sectors of the economy have or are incorporating digital transformations at some level in their organization, and in the products and services they provide. Effectively managing this digital transformation is where agile provides a unique competitive advantage leading to better outcomes, more satisfied teams, less errors, and overall efficiency. Since agile was not taught in universities ten years ago, organizations are heavily investing in agile professional development and trying to quickly educate their workforce to adopt agile as an underlying approach to their overall digital transformation projects. Throughout the spectrum of agile professional development, the goal is to focus on adopting an agile mindset to technology projects, building strong agile values, adopting agile principles, and applying agile practices customized to the environment and need of the organization. One of the authors is agile certified and working to develop the modules for adult learners to accommodate this challenge under the umbrella of ETEC at ****.
If accepted, the authors’ requests for a traditional lecture type presentation during ASEE 2023 in Baltimore, MD, USA.