Knoxville Program Profile

Location

Knoxville, Tennessee, including Knox, Blount and Anderson Counties

Regional Challenges and Opportunities

In 2020, the Brookings Institution included Knoxville as one of the top 35 regions with the potential to be one of the country’s innovation growth centers. Knoxville is home to a wide variety of growing industries from advanced manufacturing and biotechnology to healthcare, architecture and construction. The region has a strong set of post-secondary and higher education institutions that are providing students with the opportunities to develop the skills, competencies and experiences needed for them to pursue rewarding careers in these areas. In order to ensure that these opportunities are equitable and inclusive and that these career pathways and programs truly reflect changes and developments within specific industries moving forward, post-secondary institutions, K-12 schools, industries and other community stakeholders should expand current collaborations and develop new partnerships which provide K-12 and post-secondary students with hands-on, real-world learning opportunities that align with their passions and interests.

One example of such a program is Remake Learning Days Knoxville, a free, week-long festival focused on engaging youth and families in hands-on learning. The event is hosted by the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Knoxville. Nearly 5,000 students from across the region spent time on one of TCAT Knoxville’s three campuses during Remake Learning Days Knoxville 2023. Knoxville Remake Learning Days 2024 will take place May 10th-17th.

Program Goal

To introduce, sustain, and grow maker-centered programming across K - 12 and post-secondary learning institutions while strengthening community, workforce development and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Innovation Site: Tennessee College of Applied Technology Knoxville (TCAT Knoxville)

TCAT Knoxville works to provide job-specific training to benefit regional business and industrial communities and serves as the premier supplier of workforce development throughout Knoxville and the surrounding counties. Offering a wide range of skills training and credential courses from cosmetology and automotive technology to welding technology and nursing, TCAT Knoxville supports students of all ages in their journey to workforce readiness through superior quality, traditional, and distance learning instruction methods that qualify completers for employment and job advancement.

By partnering with area high schools, TCAT Knoxville is able to offer dual enrollment programming and provide opportunities for students to transition easily from secondary to post-secondary education. Through their work with K - 12 educators, industry partners, and promotion of Remake Learning Days, TCAT Knoxville creates networks between diverse stakeholders in their region, therefore fostering successful economic and community development.

Program Efforts

Since June 2023, MakerUSA and TCAT Knoxville have been working together to explore how creating and providing more inclusive maker-centered programming opportunities might best serve the Knoxville region. Through strategic and collaborative partnerships, MakerUSA is supporting the efforts of TCAT Knoxville to broaden access to and grow maker-centered learning opportunities in the community, as well as generate greater interest and success in maker career pathways.

As a foundational building block to support these efforts, Maker USA developed an initial landscape assessment and recommendations focused on expanding inclusive maker-centered learning in the Knoxville Region. This assessment had two main goals:

1) To better understand the current landscape of maker-centered learning opportunities in the Knoxville region. This included identifying existing programs, initiatives, makerspaces and other key assets as well as determining where there are challenges and gaps, how these are being addressed and where there are specific opportunities for TCAT Knoxville to support and grow these efforts.

2) To learn more about models, approaches and best practices in inclusive and equitable maker-centered learning that have been successfully implemented in other communities across the U.S. and explore which of these efforts could be best leveraged and most beneficial in the Knoxville region.