On July 24, teacher externs, workplace host partners, program mentors and more gathered for the annual STEM Teacher Externship Forum at Des Moines Area Community College’s (DMACC) Ankeny Campus. As a part of the 17th year of the Iowa STEM Teacher Externships Program, the event served as a celebration of the summer’s accomplishments and offered time for externs, hosts and other partners to gather, share about their experience, learn from each other and discuss how they will bring back lessons learned to their students and classrooms.
View highlights from this year’s STEM Teacher Externship Forum in our Flickr event photo gallery.
This summer, 86 externs were placed with 77 unique workplace hosts for six-week long experiences that connect teachers to professionals in local workplaces, providing opportunities to gain valuable STEM-related work experiences that can be applied in the classroom.
STEM Teacher Externships Program Coordinator Ann Gritzner kicked off this summer’s forum, welcoming teachers from across the state. Iowa STEM Executive Director Justin Lewis and DMACC President and long-serving STEM Council member Robert Denson also provided remarks to the crowd.
“The forum truly is a celebration of all the learning and collaboration that happens over the course of the summer for our teacher externs as well as the hosts and partners,” Gritzner said. “It is a great way for teachers to begin the transition back to their classrooms and brainstorm even more ways to bring real-world career applications to Iowa students.”
Attendees spent the morning rotating through breakout sessions that featured short presentations from both externs and hosts. Teachers shared what they learned and how they will take the lessons back to their classrooms this fall while workplace hosts shared about the value of having an educator come into their workplace for the summer to provide insight and complete projects.
“We’ve had excellent experiences with all the externs that we’ve had,” said Lori Eberhard, park manager at George Wyth State Park. “The teachers love being out there because they really get to see a lot of different things, a lot of different people and just all the types of education happening. And having teachers help us put information together that makes sense to the public helps me look at things differently as well.”
Lieutenant Governor and STEM Council Co-Chair Chris Cournoyer was featured as the forum’s keynote lunch speaker. She spoke about the value of STEM education and thanked teachers for dedicating some of their summer vacation to expanding their knowledge through an externship.
In the afternoon, attendees participated in mash-up conversations designed to facilitate discussion between similar externship experiences and similar teaching content areas.
Jason Holt, a teacher extern who teaches various industrial technology courses at Emmetsburg High School and Middle School, shared a story he plans to share with students about a real-life application of Pythagreon’s theorem.
“The second week I was on the job with an electrical crew, the guy I was helping ran off a handful of numbers so fast that by the time he got to the third one, I couldn’t remember the first two,” Holt said. “He has done it long enough that he knows exactly what number he needs for that hypotenuse when he does those two bends to make that conduit end up in the right place.”
The STEM Teacher Externship Forum provided an engaging opportunity for this year’s externs to close out their summer experiences and learn from each other.
The Iowa STEM Teacher Externship is already preparing for next year’s externship experiences. To learn more about how to participate in next summer’s Iowa STEM Teacher Externships Program, either as a teacher or a workplace host, visit the Iowa Department of Education’s STEM Advisory Council webpage.