This sponsored article is brought to you by Purdue University.

The CHIPS America Act was a response to a worsening shortfall in engineers equipped to meet the growing demand for advanced electronic devices. That need persists. In its 2023 policy report, Chipping Away: Assessing and Addressing the Labor Market Gap Facing the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, the Semiconductor Industry Association forecast a demand for 69,000 microelectronic and semiconductor engineers between 2023 and 2030—including 28,900 new positions created by industry expansion and 40,100 openings to replace engineers who retire or leave the field.

This number does not include another 34,500 computer scientists (13,200 new jobs, 21,300 replacements), nor does it count jobs in other industries that require advanced or custom-designed semiconductors for controls, automation, communication, product design, and the emerging systems-of-systems technology ecosystem.

Purdue University is taking charge, leading semiconductor technology and workforce development in the U.S. As early as Spring 2022, Purdue University became the first top engineering school to offer an online Master’s Degree in Microelectronics and Semiconductors.

U.S. News & World Report has ranked the university’s graduate engineering program among America’s 10 best every year since 2012 (and among the top 4 since 2022)

“The degree was developed as part of Purdue’s overall semiconductor degrees program,” says Purdue Prof. Vijay Raghunathan, one of the architects of the semiconductor program. “It was what I would describe as the nation’s most ambitious semiconductor workforce development effort.”

Prof. Vijay Raghunathan, one of the architects of the online Master’s Degree in Microelectronics and Semiconductors at Purdue.Purdue University

Purdue built and announced its bold high-technology online program while the U.S. Congress was still debating the $53 billion “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act” (CHIPS America Act), which would be passed in July 2022 and signed into law in August.

Today, the online Master’s in Microelectronics and Semiconductors is well underway. Students learn leading-edge equipment and software and prepare to meet the challenges they will face in a rejuvenated, and critical, U.S. semiconductor industry.

Is the drive for semiconductor education succeeding?

“I think we have conclusively established that the answer is a resounding ‘Yes,’” says Raghunathan. Like understanding big data, or being able to program, “the ability to understand how semiconductors and semiconductor-based systems work, even at a rudimentary level, is something that everybody should know. Virtually any product you design or make is going to have chips inside it. You need to understand how they work, what the significance is, and what the risks are.”

Earning a Master’s in Microelectronics and Semiconductors

Students pursuing the Master’s Degree in Microelectronics and Semiconductors will take courses in circuit design, devices and engineering, systems design, and supply chain management offered by several schools in the university, such as Purdue’s Mitch Daniels School of Business, the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the School of Materials Engineering, among others.

Professionals can also take one-credit-hour courses, which are intended to help students build “breadth at the edges,” a notion that grew out of feedback from employers: Tomorrow’s engineering leaders will need broad knowledge to connect with other specialties in the increasingly interdisciplinary world of artificial intelligence, robotics, and the Internet of Things.

“This was something that we embarked on as an experiment 5 or 6 years ago,” says Raghunathan of the one-credit courses. “I think, in hindsight, that it’s turned out spectacularly.”

A researcher adjusts imaging equipment in a lab in Birck Nanotechnology Center, home to Purdue’s advanced research and development on semiconductors and other technology at the atomic scale.Rebecca Robiños/Purdue University

The Semiconductor Engineering Education Leader

Purdue, which opened its first classes in 1874, is today an acknowledged leader in engineering education. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the university’s graduate engineering program among America’s 10 best every year since 2012 (and among the top 4 since 2022). And Purdue’s online graduate engineering program has ranked in the country’s top three since the publication started evaluating online grad programs in 2020. (Purdue has offered distance Master’s degrees since the 1980s. Back then, of course, course lectures were videotaped and mailed to students. With the growth of the web, “distance” became “online,” and the program has swelled.)

Thus, Microelectronics and Semiconductors Master’s Degree candidates can study online or on-campus. Both tracks take the same courses from the same instructors and earn the same degree. There are no footnotes, asterisks, or parentheses on the diploma to denote online or in-person study.

“If you look at our program, it will become clear why Purdue is increasingly considered America’s leading semiconductors university” —Prof. Vijay Raghunathan, Purdue University

Students take classes at their own pace, using an integrated suite of proven online-learning applications for attending lectures, submitting homework, taking tests, and communicating with faculty and one another. Texts may be purchased or downloaded from the school library. And there is frequent use of modeling and analytical tools like Matlab. In addition, Purdue is also the home of national the national design-computing resources nanoHUB.org (with hundreds of modeling, simulation, teaching, and software-development tools) and its offspring, chipshub.org (specializing in tools for chip design and fabrication).

From R&D to Workforce and Economic Development

“If you look at our program, it will become clear why Purdue is increasingly considered America’s leading semiconductors university, because this is such a strategic priority for the entire university, from our President all the way down,” Prof. Raghunathan sums up. “We have a task force that reports directly to the President, a task force focused only on semiconductors and microelectronics. On all aspects—R&D, the innovation pipeline, workforce development, economic development to bring companies to the state. We’re all in as far as chips are concerned.”

Their mission is to help educators and academic institutions responsibly adopt AI technology, empowering teachers and ultimately improving student outcomes while preparing them for the future. To help achieve this, AI for Education provides an assortment of freely available resources and training, including:

AI Literacy Curriculum;

School and policy development resources to help institutions and educators responsibly adopt AI, many of these have been translated into different languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese) by educators in different countries;

Free online course: An Essential Guide to AI for Educators, taken by over 3,000 educators globally;

A weekly webinar series, attended or watched by over 10,000 people;  

Their robust and popular Prompt Library for Educators, with 75 prompts across a variety of educator needs. Categories include: Administration, Lesson Planning, Assessment, Communication, Special Needs, and for Students.

Every prompt:

• Is designed to work with any freely available chatbot version
• can be customized to suit an educator’s particular needs
• provides examples to help get you started and crystalize their use
• provides further ideas for getting creative and exploring their use
• allows educators to input their own knowledge and use their expertise to guide and refine the process, creating far better results.

In addition to the resources available on their site, they also work directly with schools to provide either in-person or virtual professional development training and workshops. They’re already working with dozens of schools, districts, and professional associations, including NYC DOE.

For these reasons and more, AI for Education is a Cool Tool Award Winner for “Best Resource / Other Helpful Site or Tool for Education” as part of The EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more. 

The post AI for Education appeared first on EdTech Digest.

The market has spoken—now what do the teachers say? 

GUEST COLUMN | by Al Kingsley

ATANU TANMOY

The headline of our recent survey was easy to understand – a nearly unanimous view that technology makes teaching and learning better. A striking 93% of teachers and other education leaders who use technology in their jobs agreed with the sentiment.

‘…technology makes teaching and learning better. A striking 93% of teachers and other education leaders who use technology in their jobs agreed with the sentiment.’

That’s not surprising. But, as is often the case, context is paramount.

The Line is Gone

That educators see the benefits of technology so overwhelmingly may catch the attention of some people. However, the reality is that the line between technology and learning environments is gone. Not smudged, evaporated. The question is no longer whether we should have technology in teaching and learning but how much, when, and what we want it to do.

Even if, for whatever reason, you don’t put much faith in survey results, on the education technology question, the market has spoken. The ubiquitous adoption and use of classroom support and instruction technology cannot all be due to good salesmanship. Obviously, at least some education technology is providing some clear benefit in at least some places. The 92% tells us it’s considerably more than some.   

That’s the given. But, based on our survey released in March, the context and specificity of where we find education and technology are important and potentially insightful.

What a Majority of Educators Want

One of those insights is that even though educators recognize the benefits of technology, a majority (54%) told us that what they wanted most was more time for, and investment in, training to use education technologies. In contrast, 28% of the respondents in our survey said their top want was more funding for more technology. That’s a nearly 2:1 ratio.

As someone who’s been on both sides of the education technology market – as a school leader and company leader – the results tell me that sometimes we all try to introduce technology where there’s no actual impact or benefit from it. And that, even though we know it works, more is not always better, at least not right away.

Technology Alone Isn’t a Lever

When this happens, or when it looks as though it may happen, we shouldn’t be afraid to say that technology alone isn’t a lever that’s going to add value – by “we”, I mean all of us, no matter what side of the table we’re on. Educators, company representatives, administrators, families, and students should not be shy about asking impact-related questions and, where the answers are unclear or absent, pause. What educators are telling us they want, time, is not the enemy of good.

Going a bit deeper, these answers around our education resources and tools also show what seems obvious but is so easy to overlook – you can have technology in the classroom, but if you don’t have the skills or the understanding of how to use it effectively, then it can become a lump of clay. To me, for example, clay is clay, while a sculptor may see a universe of possibility and power. Sculpture is transformative. 

But even worse than letting powerful and expensive education technology gather dust and dry out for lack of time and training, without competency or mastery of technology tools, they can become a distraction rather than a benefit.

We’ve all struggled to get software or hardware to work, spending more time and frustration than it would have taken to ace the intended task the old, traditional way. It’s annoying and a waste of time, to be sure. But in a school setting, it may not be just the teacher’s time that’s being ineffectively sunk into trying to make the tech work.

The Teachers Are Right

The teachers are right. More time and training would help.

If we believe the things we say – that we want teaching to be more efficient, that we want teachers to be rock stars, that we want learning to be more personal and engaging, that managing a school should be much easier than it is – we owe them, and ourselves, that time.

After all, technology isn’t a kind of magic potion in which all that’s required is to add water and stir. It takes more than that.

Many of our education technologies are awesome, as our teachers know. If we want them to work like we imagine, time and training ought to be part of every technology package. For many technology providers and platforms, they already are. That’s the right path. In case we forget from time to time, teachers are right to remind us. 

—

Al Kingsley is the CEO of NetSupport. He is an author, chair of Multi Academy Trust cluster of schools in the UK, Apprenticeship Ambassador, and chair of his regional Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Board. A 30-year veteran in the sector he has written books on edtech, school governance, and school growth. Connect with Al on LinkedIn. 

The post Poof! The Line Between Tech and Learning is Gone  appeared first on EdTech Digest.

This sponsored article is brought to you by Purdue University.

Companies large and small are seeking engineers with up-to-date, subject-specific knowledge in disciplines like computer engineering, automation, artificial intelligence, and circuit design. Mid-level engineers need to advance their skillsets to apply and integrate these technologies and be competitive.

As applications for new technologies continue to grow, demand for knowledgeable electrical and computer engineers is also on the rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job outlook for electrical and electronics engineers—as well as computer hardware engineers—is set to grow 5 percent through 2032. Electrical and computer engineers work in almost every industry. They design systems, work on power transmission and power supplies, run computers and communication systems, innovate chips for embedded and so much more.

To take advantage of this job growth and get more return-on-investment, engineers are advancing their knowledge by going back to school. The 2023 IEEE-USA Salary and Benefits Survey Report shows that engineers with focused master’s degrees (e.g., electrical and computer engineering, electrical engineering, or computer engineering) earned median salaries almost US $27,000 per year higher than their colleagues with bachelors’ degrees alone.

Purdue’s online MSECE program has been ranked in the top 3 of U.S. News and World Report’s Best Online Electrical Engineering Master’s Programs for five years running

Universities like Purdue University work with companies and professionals to provide upskilling opportunities via distance and online education. Purdue has offered a distance Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering (MSECE) since the 1980s. In its early years, the program’s course lectures were videotaped and mailed to students. Now, “distance” has transformed into “online,” and the program has grown with the web, expanding its size and scope. Today, the online MSECE has awarded master’s degrees to 190+ online students since the Fall 2021 semester.

“Purdue has a long-standing reputation of engineering excellence and Purdue engineers work worldwide in every company, including General Motors, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Texas Instruments, Apple, and Sandia National Laboratories among scores of others,” said Lynn Hegewald, the senior program manager for Purdue’s online MSECE. “Employers everywhere are very aware of Purdue graduates’ capabilities and the quality of the education they bring to the job.”

Today, the online MSECE program continues to select from among the world’s best professionals and gives them an affordable, award-winning education. The program has been ranked in the top 3 of U.S. News and World Report’s Best Online Electrical Engineering Master’s Programs for five years running (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024).

The online MSECE offers high-quality research and technical skills, high-level analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, and new ideas to help innovate—all highly sought-after, according to one of the few studies to systematically inventory what engineering employers want (information corroborated on occupational guidance websites like O-Net and the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Remote students get the same education as on-campus students and become part of the same alumni network.

“Our online MSECE program offers the same exceptional quality as our on-campus offerings to students around the country and the globe,” says Prof. Milind Kulkarni, Michael and Katherine Birck Head of the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Online students take the same classes, with the same professors, as on-campus students; they work on the same assignments and even collaborate on group projects.

“Our online MSECE program offers the same exceptional quality as our on-campus offerings to students around the country and the globe” —Prof. Milind Kulkarni, Purdue University

“We’re very proud,” he adds, “that we’re able to make a ‘full-strength’ Purdue ECE degree available to so many people, whether they’re working full-time across the country, live abroad, or serve in the military. And the results bear this out: graduates of our program land jobs at top global companies, move on to new roles and responsibilities at their current organizations, or even continue to pursue graduate education at top PhD programs.”

Variety and Quality in Purdue’s MSECE

As they study for their MSECE degrees, online students can select from among a hundred graduate-level courses in their primary areas of interest, including innovative one-credit-hour courses that extend the students’ knowledge. New courses and new areas of interest are always in the pipeline.

Purdue MSECE Area of Interest and Course Options

• Automatic Control
• Communications, Networking, Signal and Image Processing
• Computer Engineering
• Fields and Optics
• Microelectronics and Nanotechnology
• Power and Energy Systems
• VLSI and Circuit Design
• Semiconductors
• Data Mining
• Quantum Computing
• IoT
• Big Data

Heather Woods, a process engineer at Texas Instruments, was one of the first students to enroll and chose the microelectronics and nanotechnology focus area. She offers this advice: “Take advantage of the one credit-hour classes! They let you finish your degree faster while not taking six credit hours every semester.”

Completing an online MSECE from Purdue University also teaches students professional skills that employers value like motivation, efficient time-management, high-level analysis and problem-solving, and the ability to learn quickly and write effectively.

“Having an MSECE shows I have the dedication and knowledge to be able to solve problems in engineering,” said program alumnus Benjamin Francis, now an engineering manager at AkzoNobel. “As I continue in my career, this gives me an advantage over other engineers both in terms of professional advancement opportunity and a technical base to pull information from to face new challenges.”

Finding Tuition Assistance

Working engineers contemplating graduate school should contact their human resources departments and find out what their tuition-assistance options are. Does your company offer tuition assistance? What courses of study do they cover? Do they cap reimbursements by course, semester, etc.? Does your employer pay tuition directly, or will you pay out-of-pocket and apply for reimbursement?

Prospective U.S. students who are veterans or children of veterans should also check with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to see if they qualify to for tuition or other assistance.

The MSECE Advantage

In sum, the online Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University does an extraordinary job giving students the tools they need to succeed in school and then in the workplace: developing the technical knowledge, the confidence, and the often-overlooked professional skills that will help them excel in their careers.

This award-winning professional learning community of 1 million educators provides virtual professional learning communities, 3,000 webinars and 350 podcasts on over 100 preK12 topics. Educators in all roles and all levels collaborate and engage in peer-to-peer learning on edWeb to improve teaching and learning for all students.

edWeb is free for individual educators thanks to the support of 300 leading organizations who help recruit the widest range of exceptional presenters. edWeb CE certificates are accepted by schools/districts nationwide for PD hours and 42 states for teacher re-licensure. edWeb offers districts a private virtual PLC network, a one-stop hub with access to all edWebinars, plus the ability for a district to upload their own PD programs for edWeb to track with assessments and CE certificates for the district.

Their Professional Learning Survey has shown for five years that edWeb has a significant impact on student learning. edWeb is aligned to best practices for effective professional learning, and they publish a Best Practices Guide and Framework for Virtual Professional Learning. edWeb meets increasingly rigorous accessibility standards.

edWeb provides busy teachers and staff with the convenience of anytime, anywhere learning, and an easy platform for communication and collaboration—and is an accessible, equitable, and affordable solution for personalized, equitable, flexible, and sustainable professional learning.

edWeb has received outstanding feedback and thanks from educators and has won multiple awards over the years for collaboration and professional learning. The comment they receive most from their members and sponsors is, “I love edWeb.” For these reasons and more, edWeb is (again!) a Cool Tool Award Winner for “Best Professional Development Learning Solution” as part of The EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more.

The post edWeb.net appeared first on EdTech Digest.

There are plenty of changes teachers say could help them do their jobs better, such as adequate planning time and support for their well-being.

Louisiana’s Department of Education decided to tackle some of these challenges by bringing together a group of teachers to recommend solutions — and they’re seeing change take shape.

The Let Teachers Teach workgroup released its list of recommendations in May, and their ideas span improvements for dealing with issues including professional development, student discipline and what one of the state’s top education leaders calls “the art of teaching.”

“To me, teaching is a pedagogical science, but it requires an artistic delivery,” Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley says. “Unfortunately, many teachers — due to bureaucracies or inadequacies of leadership — feel as if they're more of a robot than a professional.”

The 18 recommendations don’t mince words when describing the problems teachers face. Its section on training eschews “redundant professional learning sessions” in favor of strategies like individually tailored teacher growth plans and more time for better collaboration and planning.

One of the recommendations on discipline is titled “Trust us — don’t blame us,” calling for “excessively disruptive” students to be removed from the classroom and for “ungovernable students” to be assigned to attend alternative schools. This kind of “exclusionary discipline” practice has its critics, who argue it can be counterproductive and that it unfairly targets students who are racial minorities. However, post-pandemic, some teachers are looking for new solutions as they’ve struggled to manage what they call worsened student behaviors.

Brumley says that four recommendations became laws during the state’s spring legislative session. They include a law requiring disruptive students to be removed from class at a teacher’s request and prohibiting retaliation against the teacher.

Others will ban cellphone use in schools starting in the fall and require extra pay for teachers’ “non-academic” work, which Brumley says might include activities like working the concession stand at a school football game.

The legislature also tasked the Louisiana Department of Education and State Board of Education with devising a more effective plan for state-mandated training, Brumley explains. The Let Teachers Teach recommendations described these trainings as something teachers do “outside of the normal school day and without compensation.”

Brumley says he wanted the working group to come up with “real-world solutions to make the profession stronger while keeping in mind that student outcomes have to be paramount.” The concept was to address problems that teachers consistently told him hindered their ability to do their job.

“A very clear example is I will hear teachers say, ‘My school forces me to read a script,’” Brumley says. “We were very clear around that particular concept in the recommendations: Unless it is explicit, direct instructions or it's a novice teacher or a struggling teacher, effective teachers need the autonomy to deliver the content through the art of the profession and not simply reading from a script.”

While Brumley and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry have come out in strong support of the recommendations — they led a news conference announcing the document’s release — that’s not to say the education landscape there is without conflict.

Low earning potential has some Louisiana teachers wondering how much longer they can stay in the field, and the governor declined to back permanent pay raises. It’s also a place where culture wars are playing out, which teachers say are a mental strain — the governor is suing the federal government over expanded Title IX guidelines that protect transgender students from discrimination.