As a farm management education instructor at Dakota College at Bottineau, Linda Burbidge is well versed in how drones are used to monitor crops, livestock, and irrigation systems.

As the principal investigator of the Advanced Technological Education-funded Development of a Stackable Certificate Program for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Technicians project (Award 224777), Burbidge is exploring how these small aircraft also known as drones can be leveraged for economic development in rural communities.

The 24-credit Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems certificate program she developed with colleagues and a business industry leadership team stacks with the North Dakota college’s associate degrees in agriculture, business, horticulture, forestry, natural resources, wildlife, and fisheries.

“We wanted to make sure students knew they had this option to have that as an add-on to their two-year degrees,” she said.

With the certificate’s launch in the fall—with four new courses added to the four drone-related courses the college has offered for several years—students will have the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills to take the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) exam that is required to become a certificated operator of uncrewed aircraft.

Burbidge is also striving “to help support the workforce in North Dakota” with noncredit learning opportunities. Those activities began with the project’s first sUAS Industry Boot Camp this spring.

During the capstone presentations by the boot camp participants, Burbidge learned of two uses for drones that were new to her: inspecting radio station towers and checking park facility improvements that had been funded by government grants. From her teaching and experience as a sUAS pilot and instructor, Burbidge was aware of drones being used in the region for dam inspections, biology research, and agribusinesses.

“I really think there's a lot of different directions we can go, so this is one of the things we're going to be working on next, is where do we want to take it?” Burbidge said.

The boot camp participants report that the lessons that began online in April and concluded in May with two days of in-person, hands-on workshops expanded their thinking about how they can use drones in their careers. One participant is even planning to launch his own business centered on drones. 

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As drone technology becomes more widely adopted across industries, educators continue to explore ways to best integrate drones into STEM and technician education. From collecting geospatial data to teaching programming, drones offer hands-on learning opportunities that engage students while building technical skills. These applications are not limited to one industry—they span manufacturing, environmental monitoring, agriculture, and more—making drones a relevant, cross-cutting tool in today’s classrooms.

In this From the Archive blog post, we’re highlighting three drone-focused resources that showcase how this technology is being used to enhance teaching and learning. Our first resource is a peer-reviewed journal article that explores the impact of drone-based Smart Manufacturing workshops on educator training. Next, a foundational course introduces students to UAS systems. Our final resource showcases an educator workshop that includes sample lesson plans and activities to help teachers bring drone technologies into their classrooms.

As he was completing his master’s degree in instructional leadership, Mason Lefler looked for a job at a technical college because he considers hands-on, one-to-one mentoring, and competency-based instruction the optimal conditions for learning.

“I wanted to get back to building stuff for education, and I wanted to get back toward being closer to students and teachers,” Lefler said. He began his career as a middle school teacher in inner city Phoenix and, while in grad school at Utah State University, had considered pursuing a university career.  

Since Bridgerland Technical College (Bridgerland) hired him in 2016 as its senior instructional designer, Lefler has found that Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) are very effective tools for helping colleges deliver up-to-date educational programs that attract students and prepare them well to address high-tech employers’ needs.  

Lefler, who is now the associate vice president for Educational Innovation overseeing development and instructional systems design at Bridgerland, has served as the principal investigator of Bridgerland’s four ATE grants totaling $1.85 million and authored more than 20 other successful grant proposals to government agencies and philanthropic organizations with Tiffany Chalfant and other co-workers at Bridgerland.

“I got into grant-writing because [I] was one person at a small rural technical college that was expected to do all the curriculum development for 40 programs,” Lefler said.

In an interview, Lefler recounted recently telling another solo instructional designer who was lamenting that she was too busy to write grants, that she was too busy not to write grants. The instructional designer, from a sister college in Utah, needed external funding to hire more instructional designers to update her college’s courses. It was simply too much work for one person.

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Bridgerland President Chad Campbell explained in a separate interview that prior to Lefler bringing the ATE proposal solicitation to his attention he had thought that technical colleges, which in Utah grant only certificates, did not qualify for National Science Foundation grants.

Campbell, who has an open-door policy, remembers Lefler running into his office and saying, “‘Hey, here are some National Science Foundation grants that are a perfect fit for the things we're trying to accomplish at the college.’”  

Campbell said he was intrigued: “We said, ‘OK, Mason, go ahead and go to work on seeing what you can get accomplished.’ And he's good at it.”

Campbell also had Controller Wes Marler confirm that Bridgerland was eligible to compete for the NSF grants to test innovative technician education ideas.

Campbell gives Lefler credit for what he had done with these NSF grants and praised the system for obtaining and executing grants that Lefler, the faculty, Marler, and the rest of the financial team have developed since the college was awarded its first NSF grant in 2018.

Campbell, who was chief financial officer of the college for 30 years before becoming president, shared his philosophy about grants: “When we go look for grants, grant opportunities, if we can't find a grant opportunity that solves an identified problem of the college, we're not going to pursue the grants ... We don't go after the grant for the sake of the money. We go after the grant for the sake of the solution.

“Mason had identified issues. He had identified this grant as a solution to those issues and so we that's why we moved down that pathway. We do other grants too, but right now we're really passionate about NSF grants. They've done some really good things for us.”

First ATE Grant

After identifying ATE as a potential funding source, a colleague sent Lefler info about Mentor-Connect. This led Lefler and Matt Fuller and Scott Danielson, who are automation and controls technology instructors at Bridgerland, to apply to Mentor-Connect. The three Bridgerland team members were selected by Mentor-Connect to receive cohort mentoring as they prepared the proposal for the Scaling Up Utah's Automated Manufacturing Technician Pipeline project. It was awarded a $225,000 grant in 2018.

“We took the expertise of our automation instructors and built out a really powerful curriculum,” Lefler said, describing the program as “super tight” with self-paced lessons, fabulous rubrics, and open-entry and open-exit enrollment.

The outcomes report posted on NSF’s website with the project’s abstract lists 10 redesigned courses including 81 audiovisual lectures, 209 project modeling videos, and 257 industry-centered rubrics. All the content was loaded onto the college’s learning management system for high school teachers to access and use with low-cost training materials, which the project team also created.

The automation technology program previously graduated around 12 students per year, so the year one enrollment target was 40. The revamped program attracted more than 120 students by the end of the first year, and enrollment was more than 200 when the grant ended. Retention improved at the same time that the number of high schools participating in the dual enrollment program grew from eight to 17. The annual certificate graduate average is up 600% over the pre-grant average.

When the COVID-19 pandemic derailed plans to use industry tours to recruit students and educators, the project created videos (Automation – Caspers Ice Cream, Automation – Silicone Plastics; Machining – Paragon Medical, Machining – Christensen Machine), which quite effectively show what recent Bridgerland automation and machining department graduates do in their jobs.  

Second ATE Grant

In April 2020, NSF awarded Bridgerland a second ATE grant for the Innovations in Advanced Machining Technician Education project. This grant award was for $499,695 and supported re-envisioning how teachers could instruct groups of students who moved at various speeds through the online machining courses.  

“You might be able to lock it for the first month, but then kids start moving at a different pace, so we had to build the curriculum differently,” Lefler explained. Aside from curriculum and professional development costs, the grant allowed the college to purchase industry-standard equipment, such as fifth-axis machines. A Gene Haas Foundation grant covered the cost of upgrading the machine shop where the new equipment was installed.

Accomplishments listed in the project’s outcomes report include increasing retention of high school students into the adult certificate program by 33.62%, and the completion of certificate-seeking students increasing by 88.24% as fewer students left for jobs without completing their certificates.

Lefler points out that the project decreased the amount of time it took individuals to graduate with the same level of competency that it previously took students longer to attain.

Third & Fourth ATE Grants

Bridgerland’s two active ATE grants tackle that challenge of Utah’s extremely low unemployment rate by focusing on teaching versatile, high-demand skills that are widely used by various industries in the Intermountain West.

The Teaching Technician Troubleshooting with Mini Industry 4.0 Factories project is testing ways to integrate troubleshooting skills into existing courses, including those taken by high school students in the college’s dual enrollment programs. It was funded for $547,981 in 2021. It uses a low-cost miniature factory designed in collaboration with industry partners, and lessons that utilize augmented reality to give students hands-on learning experiences.

The Distance-Enabled Industry-Led Data Analytics Technician Pathway (ILDAP) project is developing technicians who can do data analysis for local manufacturing, financial, and information technology sector employers. It was $577,503 in 2022. The project has created distance-enabled data analytics courses to help incumbent workers update their skills and adults interested in re-entering the workforce.

Reflecting on ATE Grant Experiences

In the midst of leading the first, two ATE grants and carrying out his other campus duties, Lefler completed his doctorate in instructional technology and learning sciences from Utah State University in 2022.

He acknowledges that there have been times when simultaneously working on multiple grant-funded projects is “utterly and totally exhausting. But, man, oh, man, you walk past that [Machining Technology] space now, and it's like I would love to be a student in there ... It's exciting.”

Reflecting on his experiences leading Bridgerland’s four ATE grants, Lefler said, “I’ve been lucky to have really good problems, and really fantastic co-workers to solve them with.”

For STEM faculty seeking to enhance their courses with high-quality STEM educational materials, ATE Central's STEMLink offers an efficient solution. STEMLink integrates directly into a campus Learning Management System (LMS) and provides access to thousands of applied STEM resources created through the NSF Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. In this Q&A, ATE Central's Edward Almasy shares how STEMLink supports educators by streamlining access to curriculum materials.

In your own words, can you describe what STEMLink is and why it’s beneficial for the ATE community and other educators?

STEMLink makes thousands of high-quality applied STEM educational materials created via the NSF Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program available directly within campus learning management system (LMS), for use by educators and students in courses and classrooms.  It allows educators to easily leverage the amazing wealth of in-depth expertise, knowledge, and experience brought to the table by ATE grantees, to save them time and improve outcomes for their students.

We created STEMLink for two reasons:  1) increase and widen the impact of ATE-created materials, and  2) provide the creators of those materials with hard data on their usage, that they could then share with NSF and other stakeholders, to help demonstrate the impact of their work.

Buffy Quinn did not think that the way she organized her Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project was extraordinary until her evaluator praised her timely, efficient process, and said he wished other principal investigators used her approach.

Quinn honed her project management skills while working for 20 years as a geographic information system analyst prior to teaching at Onondaga Community College (OCC), a State University of New York college. For Quinn it is “instinctive” to break down a project into a sequence of steps with lists of tasks and deadlines on color-coded spreadsheets.  

The evaluator’s comment planted the seed for Quinn’s doctoral dissertation on applying industry project management principles to higher education.

When Quinn told an ATE colleague about her doctoral degree research at the 2023 High Impact Technology Exchange Conference, the person suggested she talk with Pamela Silvers, then the co-principal investigator of Mentor-Connect, about possible applications of her findings.

When Quinn saw Silvers on an elevator in the conference’s Atlanta hotel, their conversation quickly became a pitch session that led to a new collaboration. “I started to talk to Pam about my idea and then she was telling me about PI 101 and it just seemed like a really good way to mesh those two ideas,” Quinn said.

Quinn’s Project Management Handbook for National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Projects was tested by Silvers with last year’s PI 101 cohort of 37 teams. The handbook is now among the materials available from Mentor-Connect’s Resource Library. The library’s materials on proposal development and project implementation are all free and include articles, webinars, checklists, and reference guides.

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Online registration for this year’s HI-TEC (High Impact Technology Exchange Conference) is currently open through July 10, 2025.

HI-TEC 2025 will be held July 21-24 at the Minneapolis Marriott City Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Supported by the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education (NSF ATE) program, this annual conference focuses on preparing the nation’s current and future workforce of skilled technicians. HI-TEC will bring together educators, industry leaders, trade organizations, and professionals to collaboratively address the evolving demands of technological landscapes and advanced technological education. The conference will explore a wide range of concepts across sectors, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, biotechnology, and advanced manufacturing.

HI-TEC will feature two days of pre-conference workshops and specialized interest groups on July 21 and 22, followed by over 100 breakout sessions on emerging areas, workforce development trends, strategies for engaging learners, addressing current challenges in education, and partnerships between academia and industry. Attendees will have the opportunity to network, interact with the latest in cutting-edge technology, and explore novel methods of educating a skilled technician workforce. The conference also offers an extensive exhibit hall displaying products, services, and other educational innovations across industry sectors.

In her 31^st year of leading Advanced Technological (ATE) initiatives, Elaine L. Craft is stepping back—a bit.  

A chemical engineer in her first career, Craft led the South Carolina Advanced Technological Educational Education Center of Excellence—one of the earliest ATE centers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)—midway through her second career as a community college educator.

In 2012 Craft became the principal investigator of Mentor-Connect: Leadership Development and Outreach for ATE,  an ATE project that is a partnership between the South Carolina Advanced Technological Education Center at Florence-Darlington Technical College and the American Association of Community Colleges.  

As the principal investigator (PI) for three Mentor-Connect project grants, Craft encouraged community college educators from across the United States to pursue their ideas for improving technician education.   

The mentoring system, which Craft developed and refined with a stellar group of successful Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program principal investigators, has assisted more than 500 people on faculty-led teams from more than 400 two-year colleges as they learned how to prepare competitive grant proposals. David M. Hata, Mentor-Connect’s evaluator reported in the Journal of Advanced Technological Education in 2024 that out of 164 New-to-ATE proposals submitted by colleges that participated in Mentor-Connect’s first 10 cohorts, 117 were funded for a success rate of 71%.

During a recent interview via Zoom, Craft expressed pride that Mentor-Connect had reached this “mountaintop.” Last fall she took this pinnacle to transition to co-principal investigator. This September, Craft will shift to senior personnel, which means she will continue to be involved in Mentor-Connect, but not in charge of it.

Craft decided last year to reduce her workload to spend more time with her new husband, Dr. Daniel Hartley. “When I do something, I like to give it up my all. I tend to give 110% of whatever it is I do,” she said, adding, “He deserves that 110%.”

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The Trends

Community colleges are still facing an uphill battle in restoring enrollment rates to pre-pandemic levels. A recent report by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University highlights a concerning trend in enrollment among the nation’s community colleges, based on newly released numbers from the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

According to CCRC, less than one third (27%) of the 931 studied institutions fully recovered their enrollment numbers from fall 2019 to fall 2023. In Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, fewer than one in ten community colleges reached pre-pandemic enrollment rates. On the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota, Nebraska, Maine, Colorado, Alabama, Indiana, and Vermont saw more than half of their institutions completely rebound. IPEDS’ data indicates that community colleges in 21 states faced a 10% or greater decline in enrollment between 2019 and 2023.

While these statistics are concerning, there has been slow but steady growth in national enrollment rates since the peak of COVID-19. In 2023, over six million students registered for community college courses, a rise from 2021’s pandemic low of 5.74 million. Current numbers still fall short of the 6.59 million enrolled in 2019, and the disparity is even greater when compared to the 7.19 million enrolled in 2013.

The speed networking project co-led by Karen Leung, a biotechnology faculty member at City College of San Francisco (CCSF), has developed guidelines for speed networking events that encompass multiple 12-to-15 minute casual conversations between community college biotechnology students and industry representatives.

With data from more than 24 networking events encapsulating more than 1,000 direct student-industry interactions, Leung reports that speed networking benefits not only students, but the companies whose employees participate and the two-year college programs that organize the online networking sessions.

Speed networking “helps industry understand who our students are ... [and] how amazing our students are,” she said.

And, the three community college biotechnology programs engaged in the Increasing Student Retention and Recruitment through Alumni Programs, Speed Networking, and Industry Engagement project, which is funded with an Advanced Technological Education grant (Award 2202011), have retained more students and grown their rosters of industry partners.

“The immediate impact seems very positive,” Leung said. Her advice to faculty who want to begin offering speed networking is: “Keep it as simple as possible.”

As online education becomes an essential part of the higher education landscape, particularly for community college students balancing work, family, and education, challenges in engagement and learning remain significant. A new research brief, Beyond Engagement: Promoting Motivation and Learning in Online Courses, explores how community college instructors can better support students in online STEM courses. The study, conducted by the Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative out of Columbia University, highlights how online formats can also contribute to feelings of isolation and disparities in academic performance—particularly for low-income or racially marginalized students.

One key finding from the Collaborative's research is the importance of fostering self-directed learning (SDL) skills. These include motivation, metacognition, and applied learning processes that help students stay engaged, set goals, and adjust their study strategies. Through interviews with 25 students enrolled in online STEM courses, the study identified specific instructional strategies that can enhance student success. Key recommendations include providing structured opportunities for peer and faculty interaction, helping students navigate course materials effectively, and creating clear and predictable course structures.

Students in the study expressed a strong desire for more guidance on study strategies, time management, and how to make the most of available resources. Additionally, the research emphasizes that faculty-student interactions—whether through virtual office hours, discussion boards, or timely feedback—can significantly improve motivation and help-seeking behaviors. Many students reported that structured discussions and collaborative assignments helped them feel more connected to their peers, reducing the sense of isolation often associated with online learning. They also highlighted that clear communication from instructors about how to approach coursework, use available resources, and manage time effectively made a substantial difference in their ability to succeed.

These findings show the need for community colleges to invest in faculty training and course design strategies that prioritize engagement and support. By integrating practices that build students' SDL skills and foster a sense of belonging, institutions can create more inclusive and effective online learning experiences.

Read the full research brief here: Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative.