Work Group Report:

CURRICULUM AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

Critical Issues Menu

As discussed in the introduction of this report, there is broad agreement throughout the nation that if the United States is to maintain a position of economic and political leadership in the world, fundamental changes must take place in the educational programs that support the workplace. To develop and maintain a highly qualified workforce in the environmental technology field will require that all stakeholders work cooperatively. Two-year colleges must enhance their working relationships with employers as well as professional societies to ensure the relevance of the curriculum. In addition, two-year colleges must work closely with secondary schools and four-year institutions to ensure a smooth transition for students from one level to the next.

Following are critical issues and recommendations that address curricula and program development for the environmental technology field.

ISSUE: As environmental technology and workplace demands rapidly change, two-year college environmental technology programs must be kept current and competency-based.

RECOMMENDATIONS: The environmental technology program must assure that its curricula meet the career skills standards of the employment opportunities for which the program is designed. The environmental technology program may include all or specific traditional environmental disciplines (water, wastewater, hazardous materials, land and air) and the employer needs of a region. The program must implement national employer-recommended base skills that include oral and written communications, math, science, troubleshooting, critical thinking, and teambuilding.

Program design must merge workplace demands and society's needs and must implement the recommendations from a variety of state, regional and national skills standards projects.

It is imperative that curricula be continually reviewed and validated to meet the employment needs of the environmental technician workforce.

Thus a successful environmental technology program must:

• Incorporate environmental justice issues into environmental curricula;
• Ensure that curricula interrelate air, land, and water issues, regulations, and environmental technologies;
• Integrate business, environmental ethics, and critical thinking skills into curricula;
• Ensure that programs are competency-based;
• Ensure that programs emphasize life-long learning;
• Incorporate into the curricula concepts from the quality movement to ensure that technicians have the ability to work in groups and to do basic statistical process control;
• Coordinate across institutional boundaries to ensure program continuity;
• Coordinate across academic disciplines to ensure appropriate course offerings;
• Use nationally validated skills standards adapted to include local employment needs; and
• Integrate technical, related academic, and employability skills (i.e., SCANS Report) into a comprehensive educational program.

ISSUE: With the diversity of students currently in environmental technology programs, we must seek ways to make the transition from school to work more efficient. Further, articulation between secondary school programs and postsecondary technical programs is being advocated and supported by government, business, industry, labor and education leaders.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Two-year colleges, in collaboration with employers, must assess and define the career paths associated with environmental occupations and align their curricula accordingly. The following recommendations will assist in achieving this goal:

• Define career paths associated with environmental occupations;
• Determine the entry-level knowledge, skills, and abilities that should be taught in a two-year degree program, compared to diploma, certificate, or 4-year degree programs;
• Plan for flexibility across career paths;
• Strive for seamless educational offerings between secondary and postsecondary programs and inform students of potential additional program requirements for transferability; encourage the development of 2+2+2 articulation agreements; and
• Coordinate across disciplines to encourage the integration of environmental issues into the general education curricula.

ISSUE: To develop the education and careers of environmental technicians, two-year colleges should be partners with employers, environmental professional societies, and certification and accreditation institutions.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Two-year colleges must establish partnerships to address the professionalism of technicians. Employers who demand top quality technicians must ensure that two-year colleges have appropriate resources and should encourage their own employees to utilize these resources. Better partnerships must be leveraged and new creative opportunities tried.

These partners may be business; industry; local, state and federal government agencies; professional societies/organizations; labor; and academic institutions. Two-year colleges, with their partners, should:

• Strive for a seamless transition between education and employment;
• Build school-to-work strategies such as internships and co-op programs;
• Encourage awareness of environmental careers in elementary and secondary schools; for example, support job shadowing programs;
• Explore apprenticeships with local labor organizations;
• Recruit educational resources from government, business and industry, and labor;
• Develop articulation agreements with industry training programs;
• Develop relationships among industry training providers and educational institutions to facilitate cost-effective education; and
• Promote involvement of faculty and students in professional organizations.

ISSUE: The demands of an ever-changing environmental work place and societal needs will require two-year colleges to implement recommendations from a variety of skills standards projects to ensure that students successfully enter an environmental career path.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Several professional societies/organizations, state agencies, and labor groups have implemented various certification programs to promote quality assurance standards for the environmental workforce. To ensure that faculty and environmental technology programs are held to high quality assurance standards, the recommendations of accreditation organizations should be addressed.

To assure top quality graduates, faculty, and programs, two-year and four-year colleges should:

• Establish an internal quality assurance program for students, faculty and curricula to ensure competency-based programs;
• Utilize available model accreditation programs;
• Establish pre- and post-assessments to ensure achievement of competencies;
• Develop a peer review accreditation program (collaboration with existing accreditation agencies should be explored); and
• Conduct local, regional, and/or national validations of competency-based programs.

ISSUE: In order to offer successful, high quality graduates, environmental technology programs require support in many ways, including financial security for the program, up-to-date skilled and educated faculty, and the availability of state-of-the-art information services.

RECOMMENDATIONS: To attain financial, facility, human, and information resource development, two-year colleges should:

• Implement instructional methodologies that meet the needs of a diverse population; requiring that faculty be well-versed in these methodologies; and providing training to those faculty who need increased experience in various instructional methodologies;
• Encourage advanced education for instructional staff;
• Establish minimum faculty standards;
• Utilize students for environmental jobs at the institution;
• Incorporate access to electronic information systems for students and faculty;
• Develop matching grant or in-kind cooperative agreements with business and industry;
• Become a technical resource for government and for business and industry;
• Develop partnerships with business, industry, labor, and government institutions for access to sites, facilities, equipment, and supplies; and
• Promote instructor internships with government, business and industry, and other academic institutions.

ISSUE: A variety of instructional delivery systems are needed to meet the needs of a diverse student body; however, program budgets are limited.

RECOMMENDATIONS: To meet the needs of a diverse student body and to optimize program budgets, two-year colleges must access fully and improve upon their instructional delivery systems. These instructional delivery systems may involve classroom, shop, laboratory, simulations, pilot systems, correspondence courses, computer-aided instruction, satellite/broadcast delivery, and virtual reality. Programs may be offered during the day and evening and for credit and noncredit, to meet the needs of students and employers. The delivery system utilized must be appropriate to the needs of the student population.

To improve and fully access their instructional delivery systems, two-year colleges should:

• Investigate uniform standards for alternative delivery systems;
• Ensure quality of alternative delivery systems;
• Utilize the full capabilities of available learning technologies;
• Adapt delivery systems to target populations and populations with special needs; and
• Ensure adequate faculty training and awareness of instructional delivery systems and facilities (i.e., multimedia equipment and distance learning technology).

ISSUE: The nation's continually changing workplace demands ongoing training and retraining of its workforce. As a result, it has become evident that we need to facilitate the pathway for individuals to obtain certification, diplomas, and degrees by accepting credit for prior relevant training and work experience.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Two-year colleges should consider a procedure to allow credit for relevant short-term training and work experience towards formalized certificate, diploma, or degree-granting environmental programs. Two-year colleges should:

• Incorporate mechanisms to assess and grant credit for prior learning and work experience;
• Provide a bridge programs to meet minimum competency requirements;
• Develop alliances between noncredit and credit programs; and
• Explore joint use of faculty and facilities between short-term, noncredit, and credit programs.

ISSUE: The environmental movement towards a "green community" and environmental compliance can only be achieved with overall environmental awareness by the citizens of this country.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Citizens should have the opportunity to receive environmental awareness education. One way to achieve this is to integrate environmental awareness issues into the traditional secondary and postsecondary curricula. Two-year colleges should:

• Strive to be an institutional model of environmental health and safety compliance;
• Promote environmental enrichment activities on campus;
• Promote the development of student involvement in environmental clubs/organizations; and
• Encourage integration of environmental issues into traditional curricula at elementary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions.