CTC shares best practice “legacy” documents

The National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) grant – funded by the National Science Foundation’s ATE (Advanced Technological Education) program – sunsets later this month. What began as a series of regional grants in the 2000s led to a national center award in 2012 and a national center renewal in 2017. Through all those years, the National CTC – headquartered at Collin College in North Texas – has supported IT faculty, administrators, and students across the country with industry feedback, faculty training, and educator resources.

As the grant winds down, we’re looking to the spend the last few weeks disseminating our most essential best practices and strategies.

Specifically, two of the National CTC’s successful grant initiatives were developing the “BILT Model” process to help educators align curriculum with workforce needs and offering dozens of professional development events – both large and small, both in-person and online – for IT faculty across the country.  Years of experience with those efforts has been distilled into two detailed “owner’s manuals.” These PDFs were developed by combining together into one place both internal CTC staff process documents and also formal conference presentation overviews.

“How to Plan and Deliver Successful Professional Development Events” (33 pages) offers a step-by-step checklist and best practices guide, covering all the steps in an event timeline from planning and preparing to hosting and wrapping it up. There’s also a special section on strategies for managing successful online events. You can download the PDF here and access supplemental material here.

“Implementing the BILT Model of Business Engagement” (37 pages) provides a comprehensive overview of successfully convening a Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT). Sections include explaining the benefits of a BILT, recruiting employers to join a BILT, hosting the annual job skills vote meeting, and addressing common implementation challenges. You can download the PDF here and access supplemental material here.