Honoring the Instructors Apprenticeship for Advanced Manufacturing 2019 Cohort
The Chicago Teachers Union Foundation and Manufacturing Renaissance honored the achievement of instructors who demonstrated their technical, cultural, and pedagogical competence in advanced manufacturing instruction. Venida Duncan, Ontisar Freelain, Elana Jacobs, Todd Katz, Kenneth Lambert, and Gabriel Salgado all earned 75 Illinois State Board of Education professional development hours and completed over 200 hours of advanced manufacturing technical training. The cohort attained advanced manufacturing certificates in CNC lathe and mill from the National Institute in Metalworking Skills.
The Instructor Apprenticeship for Advanced Manufacturing (IAAM) is an advanced manufacturing program that trains and qualifies instructors to teach advanced manufacturing courses in high schools and colleges to underserved youth ages of 16-24. IAAM’s program design is based on the National Institute for Metalworking Skills’ (NIMS) best practice model and credentialing standards. NIMS, one of the advanced manufacturing consortium members, operates under rigorous and highly disciplined processes as the only developer of American National Standards for the nation’s metalworking industry accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Now completing its second cohort, IAAM has become a model for an alternative CTE endorsement pathway grounded in the professional development framework of developing the instructor’s technical, cultural, and pedagogical competencies. In only two years, IAAM has increased the number of advanced manufacturing instructors in secondary and post-secondary educational institutions by 200% with more opportunities becoming available as programming expands to meet demand.