The Instructional Program Review Narrative Report
1. College: COA
Discipline, Department or Program: Atech
Date: October 31, 2012
Members of the Instructional Program Review Team:
Rick Greenspan, Rufino Ramos, Ed Jaramillo, John Peterson, Wayne Fung, John Taylor
2. Narrative Description of the Discipline, Department or Program:
Please provide a general statement of primary goals and objectives of the discipline, department or program. Include any unique characteristics, degrees and certificates the program or department currently offers, concerns or trends affecting the discipline, department or program, and any significant changes or needs anticipated in the next three years.
The Automotive Technology curriculum is designed to prepare students for employment as apprentice auto mechanics or to allow students to continue toward a Baccalaureate degree in other advanced schools of technology in preparation for future management and teaching careers in the automotive industry.
The College of Alameda ATECH program is certified by the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF), NATEF certification guidelines and procedures are attached. College of Alameda is also part of the Toyota Technican Educational Network (T-TEN) Program, providing COA ATECH students with specialized Toyota training and affording them special opportunities towards job placement in local Toyota dealerships. It has achieved the highest level available for Toyota T-TEN certification (CEED Certification CEED (Chassis, Electrical, Engine and Drivetrain). The program also works with the Apprentice program to meet their training needs, as well as with the Calif Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR) in supplying required update pgorams for certified California Smog Mechanics.
3. Curriculum:
· Is the curriculum current and effective? Have course outlines been updated within the last three years? If not, what plans are in place to remedy this?
Curriculum is reviewed every five years by an outside certification team as part of the Program Certification by the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF). Course outlines have been updated whenever required by Curriculum Committee and Ed Code. Toyota T-TEN classes undergo an extension Toyota “validation” review every 3 years. All reviews look not only at course outlines, but review lab sheets, lecture plans, lecture presentations, day-by-day plans, and student learning in laboratory situations. Toyota validation process also involves interviewing employers of interns and graduates at Toyota dealerships.
· Has your department conducted a curriculum review of course outlines? If not, what are the plans to remedy this?
Curriculum is reviewed (see above) by outside certification teams as part of the Program Certification by the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) and Toyota. Curriculum is constantly updated to meet changing requirements of industry. NATEF program standards were updated in 2012, and the program is currently revising curriculum to meet those new standards. We also utilize out Toyota advisory committee to update curriculum.
· What are the department’s plans for curriculum improvement (i.e., courses to be developed, updated, enhanced, or deactivated)? Have prerequisites, co-requisites, and advisories been validated? Is the date of validation on the course outline?
Prerequisites, co-requisites, and advisories been validated, mainly based upon issues of safety for our students. Curriculum is constantly being reviewed and improved. Instructors attend curriculum development training every year as part of our T-TEN program, as well as attending California Auto Teachers conferences annually.
· What steps has the department taken to incorporate student learning outcomes in the curriculum? Are outcomes set for each course? If not, which courses do not have outcomes?
Student learning outcomes are evident in the task specification lists of the NATEF guidelines. Outcomes are reviewed and validated by the Ntef certification team during their site visit every five years and by Toyota during their validation visits. NATEF outcomes were revised during summer 2012 and we are currently incorporating those updated outcomes into all our classes and labs.
· Describe the efforts to develop outcomes at the program level. In which ways do these outcomes align with the institutional outcomes?
The Atech Dept has had these task-specific outcomes in place for years, due to our NATEF certification and out T-TEN Toyota certfication. Program outcomes are part of our NATEF and Toyota T-TEN certifications, which occur on a regular basis.
· Recommendations and priorities.
Continue review and improvement, as we have done in the past.
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4. Instruction:
· Describe effective and innovative strategies used by faculty to involve students in the learning process. How has new technology been used by the department to improve student learning?
With the help of Measure A and VTEA funds, the program continues to incorporate new technology into instruction and into our lab program. Since most of our lab program is 'hands-on,' our students learn to use 'state of the art' diagnostic and repair tools. Our involvement with Toyota has led to the use of innovative Toyota training techniques and training on state-of-the-art vehicles using specialized Toyota testing and diagnostic equipment.
· How does the department maintain the integrity and consistency of academic standards within the discipline?
We meet regularly to discuss these issues. In addition, the entire program is reviewed as part of NATEF and Toyota T-TEN certification. For example, last summer we learned that many T-TEN programs have added a summer “Bootcamp” course. We will be discussing that with our advisory committee in December and, if they agree, bringing that class (as an addition to our Toyota Certificate Program) to the curriculum committee during the spring, with a goal of starting the class during the summer, 2013.
· Discuss the enrollment trends of your department. What is the student demand for specific courses? How do you know? What do you think are the salient trends affecting enrollments?
Typically, enrollment trends are the inverse of the economy and unemployment. When the economy is in the tank and unemployment is high, our enrollment goes up; then the economy is booming, our enrollment drops (because students can get jobs in other areas which require less training). Right now, with the economy in the tank, our enrollment is quite high.
· Are courses scheduled in a manner that meets student needs and demand? How do you know?
Course schedules in a vocational area must consider more than just student demand. We need to consider the use of the laboratory space, employer and employment needs, staff hours within contract limitations, and the fact that our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and bring a great variety of needs to the program regarding scheduling. Within those parameters, we work to schedule the classes as best we can.
Recent cutbacks have reduced course offerings substantially. We no longer offer enough evening classes for the Light Duty Repair certificate. In addition, cutting our spring Intro to Atech evening class led to a dangerous, overcrowded classroom situation in our evening Air Conditioning class last spring.
· Recommendations and priorities.
Reinstitute cut classes, particularly evening classes. Start a summer T-TEN “Bootcamp” class. Continue review and improvement, as we have done in the past.
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5. Student Success:
· Describe student retention and program completion (degrees, certificates, persistence rates) trends in the department. What initiatives can the department take to improve retention and completion rates?
In the automotive field neither degrees nor certificates are required for students to get jobs. For that reason, we measure success not only in terms of degrees and certificates, but also in terms of employment. A great number of students leave the program for work in the field without completing degree or certicate requirements. This is not a sign of failure of our program; in fact, it is a sign of program success.
Our success rate in the T-TEN program is easier to measure than that of the generic program, because we have access to Toyota’s national employment database to track our students when they work as ‘interns’ at local dealerships. The number of students who have gotten jobs as students interns at local dealerships is excellent.
· What are the key needs of students that affect their learning? What services are needed for these students to improve their learning? Describe the department’s efforts to access these services. What are your department’s instructional support needs?
Students utilize many services at our college, including, but not limited to:
--Basic skills
--EOPS
--A tool loan program for EOPS students
--Toyota internship job placement
· Describe the department’s effort to assess student learning at the course level. Describe the efforts to assess student learning at the program level. In which ways has the department used student learning assessment results for improvement?
We utilize both the Taskstream Student Learning Outcomes as well as our NATEF certification process and our Toyota T-TEN validation process for these assessments. For further clarification of the NATEF certification process and how it utilized student learning outcomes to foster student success, see their website (www.natef.org/)
· Recommendations and priorities.
Continue review and improvement, as we have done in the past.
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6. Human and Physical Resources (including equipment and facilities)
· Describe your current level of staff, including full-time and part-time faculty, classified
staff, and other categories of employment.
Five contract instructors; Four hourly instructors; One classified employee (Toolroomkeeper)
· Describe your current utilization of facilities and equipment.
We operate from 7:30 am to 9 pm, M and W and from 7:30 am to 5 pm on Tue, Thurs and Friday. We also run Saturday fee-based classes.
· Are the human and physical resources, including equipment and location, adequate for all
the courses offered by your department (or program)? What are your key staffing and
facilities needs for the next three years? Why?
Our class schedule has been substantially cut over the last few years. We are currently down to the “bare bones,” below which we would face serious problems getting certification from NATEF and T-TEN. Our Advisory Committee will be considering (in December) adding a summer 4 unit “bootcamp” class to our 49 unit T-TEN program. We have cut Tues and Thursday night classes completely, which means that evening students can no longer achieve a certificate or degree. As stated above, cutting our evening Introduction class last spring led to an overcrowded, dangerous and potentially unsafe situation in our evening Air Conditioning class, because there was nowhere else for introductory evening students to go.
In the next 3 years, we would like to recreate a robust evening and summer program which meets the needs of all our students. This will require more classes and hiring more part-time evening instructors.
Equipment needs are constantly changing and in need of updating in all CTE programs; Atech is no exception. Toyota has done a great job of donating vehicles. We have a Toyota vehicle inventory of nearly $1 million worth of donated (actually “loaned”) late-model vehicles. On the other hand, the diagnostic, service and measuring equipment that students use must also be constantly upgraded and replaced, so it matches that used in industry and is available to students in sufficient quantity to allow them to learn the skills they require in the time allotted. In this area, we have fallen far behind other Toyota training schools across the state and the country, due to our lack of funding. While other schools have numerous funding sources available, we have only our Perkins CTE funds to spend on equipment for the program.
In the last two years, we have been forced to re-allocate Perkins CTE funding away from vital equipment and supply purchases to fund T-TEN conference travel and recruiting for our T-TEN program. This is because staff development funds and “Techprep” funds were cut (staff development was used to fund travel; techprep funds were used to fund recruiting at regional high schools). Recruiting and conference travel now account for nearly 25% of our Perkins TE budget. Essentially, this represents a cut of 25% in our equipment and supply budget at a time when equipment and suppliers have become much more expensive. In addition, next year, we will need to spend nearly $1000 as an annual fee for a new “T-TEN Program Association.” This fiscal squeeze has posed serious problems to our ability to keep the program current and up-to-date in industry standard supplies and equipment.
For years, we have had no budget at all for regular preventive maintenance. For example, when our electric shop rollup garage door fell off the wall and hit a classified employee (luckily not badly hurt), it was repaired. But COA does not contract with the company to perform annual preventive maintnance on the doors. The same is true with the hydraulic lifts. We got new air compressors for the building a few years ago, but both the District maintenance department and the College refuse to pay for annual preventive maintenance on the compressors. At this point, the instructors are trying to learn to do it ourselves, because it is so damaging to the programs when the compressors break down ( although having instructors maintain building equipment is a violation of the Local 39 contract). Preventive maintenance and facility maintenance cannot be paid out of Perkins/CTE funding or state supply funding, and these are the only funds over which our department has descretion.
Finally, our physical building is in need of “infrastructure” repairs. There is no air conditioning in the building, making the upstairs classroom unbearably hot during the summer. The heating system is inadequate, making the building quite cold in the winter. The exhaust ventilation system is 40 years old, they don’t make parts for it any longer, and it is literally “on its last legs.”
· Recommendations and priorities.
*Increase funding to cover necessary supplies and equipment upgrades to keep pace with the industry, including required new Smog equipment (starting in 2013), updating alignment and wheel equipment, and getting new electronic and diagnostic equipmen t.
*add classes to meet student and industry needs and demands
*fund “best practice” preventive maintenance on facility equipment, including lifts, garage doors, and (as best as possible for an antique system) exhaust ventilation
*upgrade the air conditioning, heating and exhaust ventilation systems in the B Building
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7. Community Outreach and Articulation