MATE Center: A Strategy for Improving Marine Technical Education
Authors: Sullivan Deidre , Zande Jill , Murphree Tom , Ford Bruce 
Published: June 2014

A major goal of the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center is the creation of appropriate guidelines, assessments, curricula, and programs to provide students and workers with the knowledge and skills they need to excel in marine technology careers.

About the MATE Center

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center, headquartered at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California, is funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) and has been in existence since 1997. The MATE Center is a national network of community colleges, high schools, universities, research institutions, marine industries, professional societies, and working professionals. The mission of the MATE Center is to improve marine technical education and in this way help to prepare the nation's future workforce for ocean-related occupations.

Introduction

The process of developing a competent marine workforce that is well prepared for employment requires collaborating with a wide range of people and organizations. One of the major tasks of the MATE Center is to identify and define marine technical occupations, and the abilities that men and women need in order to perform well in these occupations. The major product that results from this work is a set of occupational knowledge and skill guidelines (KSGs) for technical marine occupations. These guidelines describe what workers need to know and be able to do in order to perform their jobs well. The KSGs are different for each occupation. The KSGs developed by the MATE Center include those for marine technicians, remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technicians, hydrographic survey technicians, aquarists, and aquaculture technicians. The KSGs in their entirety can be found at: http://www.marinetech.org/marineworkforce

The KSGs have been used to identify requirements, or competencies, that are common to two or more occupations. These competencies have then been grouped into educational subject areas in order to facilitate the efficient development of educational materials and programs that are based on occupational requirements. The competency areas developed so far include: safety and seamanship, computer systems, data processing, technical writing, oceanography, meteorology, marine biology, navigation, hydraulic equipment, electronics, surveying, submersibles, math and statistics, interpersonal relations, water quality, small boat operations, physics, instrumentation, machining and fabrication, fluid dynamics, propulsion systems, and geographic information systems (GIS).

The competencies are a critical link between the workplace and the classroom, since they connect job requirements to educational subject areas. The competencies are the basis for the development of instructional materials, starting with assessments based on the competencies, and instructional modules based on the assessments. Assessments and modules are under development for a number of the competency areas listed above. The instructional materials are the foundation for MATE Center courses, student internships, and faculty development workshops, described in the MATE Center papers that follow in this publication.

A key element of all of these products is that they are based on KSGs that have been identified and validated by practicing marine technicians through workshops and surveys conducted by MATE Center staff. Educators then implement the KSGs, by way of the competencies, as they develop the MATE Center's instructional materials, courses, and educational and career management programs.