Transformation Agenda Collaboration

In collaboration with the Massachusetts Community Colleges and Workforce Development Transformation Agenda (MCCWDTA), a Department of Labor funded Trade Adjustment Assistance Community Collect and Career Training (TAACCCT, Round 1) grant, and Massachusetts community colleges, Strategic Education Initiatives in the MIT Office of Digital Learning engaged in a strategic consulting process to identify the areas where technology-enabled components could enhance and expand training opportunities in advanced manufacturing for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Three learning modules were selected through a collaborative process with community college faculty and administrators and developed by MIT:

• Online Case Study of an Industry-driven Problem: To provide students opportunities to integrate their knowledge and tackle real-world business issues that face advanced manufacturing companies. Lead participants: Quinsigamond Community College and Berkshire Community College
• Critical Skills Improvement Online Case Study: To help students improve critical observation skills. Lead participants: Mount Wachusett Community College and Springfield Technical Community College
• Ortho-to-3D Online Learning Module: Assessments in which students are tested on whether they can find the correct 2D projection based on analyzing an interactive 3D rendering of an object (or physical object), or vice versa. Lead participant: Quinsigamond Community College

In addition, MIT collaborated with MCCWDTA and Bristol and Middlesex Community Colleges to develop a proof of concept “data bus” to enable current investments by the community colleges and career centers in their systems to support broader functionality and allow them to be methodically improved and integrated over time. MIT conducted a needs analysis and identified an opportunity for integration that enables “job seekers to make informed and time sensitive decisions based on actual educational offerings that will help them secure a job or improve their job skills”. Working closely with partner colleges, the proof of concept integrates occupations from career centers with programs offered by the colleges and employment data from Massachusetts’ Higher Education Information Resource System (HEIRS).