The Lego-Ization of Learning

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March, 2016
The SELACO WDB is a proud partner of America’s Job Center of California network
Southeast Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board
10900 E. 183rd Street
Suite 350
Cerritos, CA 90703
Direct Phone:
(800) 481-5555
Main Number:
(562) 402-9336
Fax Number:
(562) 860-4701
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Web Address: www.selaco.com
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Contact Information:
Yolanda Castro
Executive Director, Administrative
Services, Program Operations
10900 E. 183rd Street, Suite 350
Cerritos, CA 90703
Marjean Clements
Director of Business Services
10900 E. 183rd Street, Suite 350
Cerritos, CA 90703
562-402-9336 ext. 1252

Linda M. Bouman
Project Coordinator
10900 E. 183rd Street, Suite 350
Cerritos, CA 90703
562-484-5041

Nick (Yannick) Real, Ed.D.
Instructional Dean, Technology Division
Cerritos College
PST Building
11110 Alondra Blvd.
Norwalk, CA 90650
Raquel Lizarraga
Cerritos College
Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Technology Linked Learning (AMETLL)
Cerritos College
11110 Alondra Blvd.
Norwalk, CA 90650














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The ‘Lego-ization’ of Learning

Companies are repurposing digital content into smaller chunks to make their learning more useful to more workers.

Analytics, machine learning, big data and consumerization of content have transformed the way learning is delivered – and there is no going back.
“While the information might be the same, the format it comes in is radically different,” said Jennifer Stempel, a director at Deloitte Consulting. Think snackable chunks of learning that can be digested in three to five minutes, and massive content libraries that employees can access at will. “What people need to know hasn’t changed, but how they learn it has,” she said. “It’s about offering new platforms that enable employees to be in control of how they access learning.
The increased focus on the need for training – it’s a top three priority for executives today” according to Deloitte – “could with the flurry of innovative new technologies and platforms to support learning have drawn a lot of attention and investment into the space. The global
e-learning market was expected to reach $107 billion by 2015, up from about $32 billion in 2010; and the global market for learning management systems, or LMS, is expected to grow to more than $11 billion by 2020 from just over $4 billion in 2015.”[i]

THE NEW WORKFORCE

Labor markets are transforming – the manufacturing workforce is aging, it’s harder than ever before to attract talent, and women and minorities make up an increasingly large share of the workforce.
100% of middle managers report that the skills gap is having a negative impact on their businesses, whereas only slightly more than half of CEOs and presidents agree.[ii]

Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI): New Study Shows Manufacturing Footprint Is Much Larger Than Perceived

Two measures commonly used by the government to quantify manufacturing’s overall footprint significantly underestimate the impact of the factory sector, according to a new report by MAPI Foundation Chief Economist Dan Meckstroth.
While official statistics state that manufacturing’s proportion of U.S. GDP stands at about 11%, this new research, which uses national input–output tables by Interindustry Forecasting at the University of Maryland, reveals that manufacturing actually accounts for about one-third of GDP, three times the impact that a simplistic analysis of the data suggests.
A second popular measure, the multiplier effect, which expresses the increase in income and consumption generated by a specific economic activity, is also almost three times as high as presumed. The MAPI Foundation’s report estimates manufacturing’s value added multiplier at 3.6; this means that for every $1.00 of value added by domestic manufacturing, the sector generates $3.60 of value-added elsewhere in the U.S. economy.
Manufacturing’s Impact on Employment
The study also shows that manufacturing has a much bigger impact on employment than government data suggests: while the factory workforce accounts for 9% of total full-time employees in the nation, an additional 23% of the nation’s workers are linked to manufacturing—making the total footprint equal to 32% of the U.S. workforce.
For every manufacturing job there are 3.4 full-time jobs created elsewhere in the United States to support manufacturers’ efforts.[iii]
Parent Action Plan: 12th Grade
High school seniors are on the brink of making some of the biggest decisions of their lives, and for many students and their parents, it will feel as if this moment came sooner than they expected. Senior year is a whirlwind of activities. This is a big year for your teenager as he or she balances schoolwork, extracurricular activities and the college application process. Here are some suggestions to help you and your student successfully navigate the important time.
Spring
·  Help your child process college responses. Once your child starts hearing back from colleges about admission and financial aid, he or she will need your support to decide what to do. Read about how to choose a college.
·  Review financial aid offers together. Your 12th-grader will need your help to read through financial aid award letters and figure out which package works best. Be sure your child pays attention to and meets any deadlines for acceptance. Get more information on financial aid awards.
·  Help your child complete the paperwork to accept a college’s offer of admittance. Once your child has decided which college to attend, he or she will need to accept a college’s offer, mail a tuition deposit and submit other required paperwork. Learn more about your high school senior's next steps.[iv]
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Manufacturing Tours
On December 16, 2015, students from John Glenn High School, located in Norwalk, and part of the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District toured ROMAC Supply Company, an Industrial Electrical Solutions Supplier. ROMAC is a founding member of the Professional Electrical Apparatus Recyclers (PEARL), a standards development organization dedicated to the safe reconditioning of industrial electrical equipment and components. In addition, ROMAC is a member of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), International Electrical Testing Association (NETA), Association for Facilities Engineering (AFE), Electrical Generating Systems Association (EGSA), National Demolition Association (NDA) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
The students were impressed with the demonstration of the TESLA coil. You can view a demonstration on you tube below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Zff9rwFqc

Following the visit to Romac, students visited Omniteam, Inc., a major supplier of remote refrigeration systems, blast chillers, up-flow evaporators, and sushi cases, in the City of Downey. Their projects include major hotels in Las Vegas, universities, restaurants, hospitals, convention centers, stadiums, and international clients in Egypt, Korea, Turkey, and Columbia.

Under the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Technology Linked Learning Consortium, Grifols, a global healthcare company with more than 13,000 employees in 25 countries working together to improve people’s health and well-being invited the Southeast Los Angeles Workforce Development Board (SELACO WDB) and Downey High School to tour their Los Angeles facility.
The tour took place on Tuesday, February 23, 2016, with Linda M. Bouman, Project Coordinator, at SELACO WDB, John Hwang, and 11th and 12th grade students from his Principles of Biomedical Sciences class.
Downey Students Sweep SkillsUSA Regionals
SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. Launched in 1967, this National Championship has grown from 54 competitors in three contests to more than 6,000 competitors in 99 hands-on occupational and leadership skill areas. Adding contests to the championships to meet the demands of new and expanding occupations, their affiliated instructional programs represent 130 different occupational areas.[v]
Nearly 300 Downey Unified School District students competed against high school students from Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties at the SkillsUSA Regional Competition in January.
Preparing students for their prospective careers or to continue their education, this two-day competition was held January 23rd and January 31st. The first day challenged students on topics that centered around “skills” while the second day focused on the “leadership” portion of SkillsUSA.
Linda M. Bouman, Project Coordinator, SELACO WDB, for the Advanced Manufacturing & Engineering Technology Linked Learning Consortium (AMETLL) Career Pathways Trust Grant, was presented with a Certificate of Appreciation for volunteering as a judge in the SkillsUSA California Region 3 Skilled and Leadership Conference.
Currently with over 15,000 chapters, Downey Unified is the largest chapter involved in SkillsUSA, with one or more students qualifying for Nationals every year since 2009. Last year resulted in 500 student’s competing in the Regional Championships, 225 qualifying for the State Championships, 26 made it to the Nationals and ultimately culminating with four finishing as national champions.
This was the first year for Downey to have students from the middle and adult education levels competing in the SkillsUSA Regional Competition. Students from the Downey Adult School Vocational Nursing Program swept the competition in Practical Nursing, taking bronze, silver and gold medals.
The Stauffer Robotics Club, along with up-and-coming engineers from Stauffer Middle School, competed in Mobile Robotics Technology and Team Engineering Challenge, bringing home all three medals in both competitions.
Downey Unified students brought home a combined total of 77 gold medals, 48 silver medals and 34 bronze medals between Downey High, Warren High, Stauffer Middle and Downey Adult School.
The “Women in Engineering” event at Cerritos College on January 26, 2015 was amazing.

In attendance at this event were over 100 students and teachers listened intently to a panel of women engineers from different career paths, stages, and industries with a 30-minute meet and greet at the end for one-on-one interaction. The discussion centered on the challenges and rewards of the profession to encourage more students, specifically women, to pursue a career in engineering. The panelists included:
·  Evelyn Cortez-Davis – Manager of Special projects and Groundwater Planning, Los Angeles Department of Power and Water
·  Mary-Ellen Esquer – Civil Engineer/Design Manager, Carollo Engineers
·  Rhonda Love Dibachi – Nuclear Engineer, Co-Founder and CFO at Noribachi
·  Sandhya Jetti, Sr. Electrical Engineer, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Enerpro
·  M.K. (Val) Lerma, Professional Engineer, Engineering Manager, InterACT and ACTEON Company
·  Viridiana Hernandez, Field Sales Representative and Engineering Design team member, Con-Tech Plastics
We received a thank you email from the Professional Engineer, M. K. (Val) Lerma for inviting her to participate in the event. She stated that “it was very well run, very well attended, and very well moderated! It was a pleasure to be involved, and I hope we swayed a few gals to seriously consider the engineering profession as a career. Your work is so important to our nation. Education is the key to eradicating poverty and homelessness in our country-you played a big role yesterday in getting kids to make good decisions early on-THANK YOU!” Best Regards, Val
Hyperloop is Changing the Way We Think About Transportation
During January 29-30, 2016, Space X Hyperloop held a Pod Design competition at Texas A&M University. Mr. Elon Musk, is the founder of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. Ms. Sandhya Jetti, panelist at the “Women in Engineering” event, is employed by Hyperloop. This event brought together more than 1,000 college and high school students together to showcase passenger-compartment designs for a hyperloop high-speed transit system at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.[vi] University teams included: Cal Poly, UC Irvine, and high school seniors from El Segundo High School. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took top honors at the design competition. Mr. Musk is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, engineer, inventor and investor. He is the founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, co-founder, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, chairman of SolarCity, co-chairman of OpenAI, co-founder of Zip2, and co-founder of PayPal. In January 2016, he has an estimated net worth of US$12.4 billion, making him the 39th wealthiest person in the US.

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Three workshops were held on the following topics:
·  Networking 101: Connecting with Lattes and Conversation
·  Professional Fashion 411
·  “Knock it Out of the Park” Interviews
Special thanks went to Carolyn Hines, Career Development Program Instructor for Minority Worker Training Program; Advisory Board Member; Entrepreneur – Who’s Who in Black Los Angeles; VP Board of Directors – National Association of African Americans in HR; VP, Board of Directors – New Image Emergency Shelter for the Homeless; Owner Hines Hospitality Group.
Dr. Elijah Levy received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology and is an interdisciplinary thinker. Dr. Levy teaches at the University of Redlands in the undergraduate and graduate School of Business; he also functions as the undergraduate and graduate liaison for the School of Business. Dr. Levy is the Director of The Levy Launch, a center providing corporate training, management consultation and start-up support to non-profit agencies.
Eli Romero, Sr. Program Manager at International Trade Education Programs, Inc. (ITEP). Eli received a Master’s in Public Policy & Administration and a Bachelor’s in Sociology from CSU Long Beach.
Carmen Tovar, Program Manager is also employed at ITEP. Carmen received a Bachelor’s in Sociology from CSU Long Beach.
The Employer Panel participants included:
·  Bryan Bradford, HR Analyst at the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Bryan graduated from the University of CA Riverside and received his Masters of Public Administration from CSU – San Bernardino.
·  Carolyn Hines joined Bryan on the employer panel.

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[i] Fister Gale, S. (2016). The ‘Lego-ization’ of Learning. Workforce Special Report: Learning Providers. Retrieved from

http://www.workforce.com/articles/21820-the-lego-ization-of-learning

[ii] Manufacturing Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI). (2016). Manufacturing Megatrends: The Impact of Megatrends on U.S. Manufacturers [Data file]. Retrieved from http://www.mapi.net/sites/default/files/blog/TheImpactofMegatrendsonUSManufacturers.pdf

[iii] Meckstroth, D. (2016). MAPI: New Study Shows Manufacturing Footprint Much Larger Than Perceived. Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operations Magazine. Retrieved from