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Executive Summary |
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Adding Value by
Infusing Work Skills into the Core Curriculum A. Introductory Overview: Our project started with the national increasing awareness of the need to infuse workforce skills into the general education curriculum. Readings such as Learning Outcomes for the 21st Century: Report of a Community College Study by Wilson, Miles, Baker and Schoenberger (published by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Pew Charitable Trusts, February 2000) stressed the need to “incorporate the ‘hard’ skills of literacy, numeracy, and information technology literacy, as well as the ‘soft’ skills of teamwork, communication, problem solving, and the ability to work with diverse groups, and that success in the workforce or in further education depends on acquisition of these skills” (11). The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report, produced by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2000, detailed “What Work Requires of Schools.” In addition, our college President conducted focus groups with leaders of the business and professional community in our service area, and the conclusions she drew from these re-affirmed the national research. With this awareness and clear need, Manatee Community College staff applied to FIPSE for this three-year grant. The program started in January, 2001, and ended in December, 2003. Its impact reached from the individual classrooms of not only the teaching team of the grant, but to a large number of the faculty who adopted the goals of the grant, and to the institution itself, which changed its general education goals and the curriculum of a significant portion of the general education requirements. B. Problem: The SCANS report and The League for Innovation in the Community College, among various other national and local schools and organizations, documented the need for curriculum revision, or, as we see it at Manatee Community College (MCC), curriculum enhancement. Clearly, all educational programs should include the teaching and reinforcement of skills needed for success in the 21st century workforce. This premise was affirmed by national organizations such as the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) which observed in 2001 that “The New Economy darkened the screen of many dot.com businesses in 2000. Many once successful high tech companies found their short-term growth rates unsustainable for the long haul. Others watched yesterday’s value-added product of service become today’s margin busting market commodity. Despite these and other changes in the marketplace, this report finds that the demand for IT workers in the New Economy remains strong” (www.itaa.org, 4/27/01). The use of technology by the faculty, and the reinforcement of specific competencies in the classroom, became one of the biggest efforts in all FIPSE classes. Then most important in identifying the problems and subsequent needs, in the fall of 1999, Dr. Sarah Pappas, President of Manatee Community College, invited business and community leaders to share their needs and expectations for a 21st century workforce. The recurring concerns at the local level mirrored the national theme: each graduate, regardless of career choice or field of study, must demonstrate and document proficiency in a broad range of contemporary skills. C. Background and Origins: At the time of applying for the grant, the general education core at MCC was traditional, and the teaching style of most faculty followed the European model. We were preparing students for transfer to the university system, not for the world of work, and we were doing it largely through the lecture/discussion method. The grant proposed to infuse 21st century workforce skills into the general education curriculum starting with seven specific courses and a select team of faculty. It also proposed to create models of active learning and to post them to a newly created FIPSE grant web site. During the course of the three-year grant, the grant team would continue to meet with members of the business and professional community—directors of human resources, bank presidents, psychologists, restaurateurs, newspaper publishers, accountants, etc.—and continue to affirm from those meetings, from work with consultants, and from research what was needed of community college graduates to be successful in the 21st century workforce. D. Project
Description: The
project started in January, 2001, with a faculty curriculum, learning, and
design team (CLDT) aimed at infusing workforce skills into the first two
courses, Written Communication I (ENC 1101) and Intercultural Humanities I (HUM
2210). The project director was a
member of the team and a teacher of one of the targeted classes. The team immediately began to incorporate
new lessons to address the goal of infusing the eight core skills listed in the
Learning Outcomes book and included in the grant proposal. The 21st century skills include
the following: l. Communication skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening),
2. Mathematics skills (understanding and applying mathematical concepts and
reasoning, analyzing, and using numerical data), 3. Community skills (citizenship; diversity/pluralism; local
community, global, environmental awareness), 4. Critical thinking and problem
solving skills (analysis, synthesis, evaluation, decision making, creative
thinking), 5. Information management skills (collecting, analyzing, and
organizing information from a variety of sources), 6. Interpersonal skills (teamwork, relationship management,
conflict resolution, workplace skills), 7. Personal skills (ability to understand
and manage self, management of change, learning to learn, personal
responsibility, aesthetic responsiveness, wellness), and 8. Technology skills
(computer literacy, internet skills, retrieving and managing information via
technology). During this first year, the
team continued to research current practices in written communication and the
possibilities for enhancement in the humanities course. Consultants were hired to do workshops for
the English department on the features of business writing (as opposed to
academic writing) and how to incorporate these features into freshman
composition courses. Other consultants
were hired to address the entire faculty on the benefits of using active
learning and on the variety of active learning strategies which can be employed
in the classroom. The web site
continued to grow as the web manager and the project director worked to improve
the design to make the curriculum and learning modules accessible. “Before and after” documents were filed to
demonstrate the change in performance objectives, course descriptions, and
syllabi resulting from the implementation of the grant. These would later be adopted by departments
as the team brought their work back to their colleagues. Also, throughout the three-year program, the
project director kept representative samples of student work so that a “before
and after” demonstration of progress could be made. In addition, with the help of the external evaluator, student
surveys were given and analyzed. Also,
standardized tests were given as part of the evaluation opportunities. The patterns of the program were set in the
first year, and then they were duplicated in the second year with additional
team members from mathematics and natural science, and in the third year with
additional team members from social science and literature. A mentoring program was put into place
during the second year, and it was continued through the third year as
well. Mentors were assigned new faculty
who met on a regular basis to discuss curriculum, methodology, and web
design. Faculty serving as internal
consultants were brought into the team program to teach new faculty how to set
up and maintain a web site. Even before
the start of the third year, every member of the grant team had a web site
which reflected the goals of the grant program. E. Evaluation/Project Results: The evaluation of the program was an on-going effort by the team, the project director, and by the external evaluator. Focusing on daily work and the products produced by the team, the evaluation documentation included: faculty work, student work, student surveys, faculty surveys, The Academic Profile, a standardized test from Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, and the analysis of all of these components. Perhaps the most significant factor in this regard is the greatest result of the project: Manatee Community College’s general education goals were revised to model the FIPSE eight core skills, adopted by the Curriculum Development and Review Committee, voted upon by the faculty, and passed by the president’s council and board of trustees. Also important to mention are the dissemination efforts throughout the grant period. The project director learned from the national meetings and from our program officer in Washington that publicizing and sharing the work and results of the program was important, and so she responded with a complete program consisting of newspaper articles, college made press pieces, presentations by the team to the advisory committee, to the faculty, to the president’s management team, to the board of trustees, and at conferences (state, regional and national). F. Summary,
Conclusions and Lessons Learned:
To summarize, the FIPSE grant program was a huge success. At the time of this writing, the acronym,
used as a word, “FIPSE” has become part of the college vocabulary, meaning
eight core skills reinforced across the curriculum to prepare our students for
the 21st century workforce.
The word is used in a variety of forms, for example, as a verb, “to
FIPSE-ize” a course or assignment, which means, to infuse 21st
century skills into that course or assignment.
Further, a “FIPSE” presence is apparent on all campuses not only through
posters and other printed material, but through specific curriculum, active
learning strategies, and specific workshops conducted by members of the
original team and by additional faculty attached to the team through programs
sponsored by the grant.  
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