Sean our business partners can be a challenge to keep in orbit with us each year, as personnel changes on their end often mean the ball can get dropped. And attracting new businesses is a cold-call never easy, but getting easier as we accumulate evidence to present. Teacher recruitment can be a challenge as well, as it is bold and confident teachers that are most likely to engage, so we do lot of cajoling and promoting. Transfer back to classrooms is well-orchestrated by project managers who plan meaningful pre and post workshops as well as real-time virtual communities. Thank you.

Jeffrey, I’m really interested in the successes you’ve had recruiting businesses, as I know this is a major challenge for many involved in the STEM school movement. Anything you can share about lessons learned would be much appreciated. You mention the importance of accumulating evidence. I’m really curious what kinds of evidence businesses find convincing. Thanks a lot.

Sean the main selling points we employ for drawing in business partners are (1) ROI — over the years we’ve accumulated evidence from past business partner surveys regarding the monetary value of having an extern in the shop or on the floor or in the finance wing, etc. It can be sizeable — as much as six figures in cost savings, inventory savings, inefficiencies ironed out, etc. And of course we document the intellectual contributions of the externs — often solving a problem that vexed a manufacturer or took care of something they just had not had time to address. Then (2) we compel our business partners to be part of the education solution so many of them have observed — readiness of graduates for the world of work. They find this a natural entry point behind the walls of schools, to be able to exert a healthy influence via partnerships. Thanks.

Sean the main selling points we employ for drawing in business partners are (1) ROI — over the years we’ve accumulated evidence from past business partner surveys regarding the monetary value of having an extern in the shop or on the floor or in the finance wing, etc. It can be sizeable — as much as six figures in cost savings, inventory savings, inefficiencies ironed out, etc. And of course we document the intellectual contributions of the externs — often solving a problem that vexed a manufacturer or took care of something they just had not had time to address. Then (2) we compel our business partners to be part of the education solution so many of them have observed — readiness of graduates for the world of work. They find this a natural entry point behind the walls of schools, to be able to exert a healthy influence via partnerships. Thanks.

Thank you, Jeffrey. With regard to the ROI point, could you elaborate on how the externs bring about the cost savings? You can probably tell that I’m not very familiar with how the externships work. Are the externs compensated? If not, then I can definitely see how they save money.

Sure thing, Sean. While on site, externs are of course “at work” generating databases, programming computers, dissembling machines, etc. At summer’s end we ask the host business or agency to estimate the monetary value of the extern’s work. A hospital estimated over $100,000 in cost savings as a result of the some inventory analysis work by an math teacher extern in their emergency room. A manufacturer estimated a $30,000 value of the extern that they’d have likely spent on a consultant who’d have done the same job. That sort of thing. Thanks.

See my comments below. Making these things happen systematically (across more of the participants) would be important, I think, and then, I think the possibilities of what teachers could get from the program and what they might bring to their classrooms are quite varied and idiosyncratic. I’d really like to see, as I say below, a really nicely nuanced change model showing what you expect and then some investigations of what the impacts actually are and under what circumstances the good things happen. That will allow both refining the program as well as helping others put together similar programs. My own experience with a program like this many years ago at Georgia Tech was that while there are many anecdotes to offer, there is still much to learn about getting to the impacts we all want (or think we want).

Or even knowing what those impacts might be. ;-)

Janet we have a wonderful team of mentors who coach extern-teachers on translational applications of their work experiences back at school. Take a look at their blogs and lessons at http://www.iowastem.gov/externships. And let me know if you’d like a copy of our annual report. Thanks.

I was asking you to be explicit here in this discussion about the lessons you are learning. I was also challenging you to take a systematic approach to learning those things and to thinking about what you might investigate and learn. So what are the lessons that others can take away from your work?

Sure thing, Janet. Some of the lessons that others can take from our work include our finding that business hosts believe the experience to be beneficial in that teachers accomplish host goals, acquire real-world examples to share with students, and forge relationships between school and industry.
Teachers report improved teaching as a result of their experience and believe that it affected STEM interest among their students. Thanks.

Thank you Jeffrey; really appreciate your response. I hope that I can contact you in the future as I proceed to do something similar in my region.