Thank you for visiting our page and viewing our video. We hope this video gives you some ideas about how we engaged the middle school, high school, and college  students in technical career exploration.  Our college students enjoyed talking about their roles in our project. 

One of our main goals is to provide 7th-12th grade students with exposure to technician education and careers so that they can make informed decisions.

We are in the second year of our project. During year one we measured increases in students interest in STEM careers using pre and post surveys. Some of the activities we provided for students included visits from STEM industry partners and visits to industry sites and visits to the college for Experience STEM College Days. We found that 58% of the students participating in our program self-reported an increased interest in STEM careers. While 2% reported a decrease in interest, the remaining students did not report a change in interest. We found that the industry connection and presence helped students see the possibility of a STEM-based career and the industry partners felt that the students had a better understanding of their company and the careers they offer.

How do you bring industry and students together?

Intriguing project! How do you track project success across these key transition points especially given the leaky educational pipeline?

Hi Sharon,

This seems like such important work on the ground to broaden the pipeline -- really connecting to the possible futures. I can see how it will work strongly for those students who are lucky to be directly involved. I wondering what we all might learn from this project for other places who might want to learn from your approach in creating their own. Could you gaze into the crystal ball for me, and imagine what the lessons or tools for other places might emerge from your work, say 5 years from now? 

jeremy

The issue of how to engage industry in a meaningful way pervades many projects.  I am not sure that people from industry have the vocabulary to make clear their requirements for technicians in terms that can provide guidance on classroom issues.  Also there is a long time period between middle schoool and the workplace - about as long as from kindergarten to middle school.  Perhaps the community college students as nearer peers can help bridge the gap.  Perhaps the gap can be bridged by showing how certain topics or cometemcies are in fact germane to technician careers.   Do you have some short term goals on whcih to base success?      

I have been working with others on a project to determine the mathematics skillls, competencies and reasoning needed by technicians in the workplace.  Are the community college students able to bring some insight to the middle school students about why they need to learn certain mathematics?    

There is some of that exchange between the students and the teacher has implemented 3D printing and robotics projects so the students get to see math being applied in those too.  From what I hear from the college students, the middle school students have lots of questions about community college and the types of career paths that are available.  

Great project! It is better to prepare students before they start college.

A great program of opportunities for students to experience STEM applications.  Looking forward to the tracking data to evaluate the larger impact of this program in the longer trajectories of participating students and their endeavors into STEM!

  

What are some of the ways this work has enhanced the relationships between middle schools / high schools and industry partners? 

This is an amazing and much-needed project!  As a former manufacturing engineer turned math professor and now instructional designer, this is a fantastic way to get students excited about STEM and the many possibilities for careers.  WELL DONE!! :)

What an important project! Thank you for sharing. Connecting community college students to secondary students allows some important mentoring relationships to be built. Have any of the middle/high school students stayed in contact with the community college students after their "formal" relationship had ended? If you don't know this, it might be something to keep track of as you move forward.

Thank you for your comment and questions, Meena.   In Connecticut we have very strict regulations in K-12 so the Community College students can only tutor/mentor when there is a teacher present and cannot contact the students outside of the classroom setting. We cannot have any mechanism in place for them to stay in touch. And unfortunately by the time the students come to the CC, the CC students tutoring or mentoring them will have moved on.