Last Wednesday, Chamber VP of Education and Workforce Development Lisa Marie Gomez joined a group of teachers from districts across Bexar County at Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI) Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center (TMAC) for a morning of experiential learning and professional development. The group was part of the Alamo STEM Workforce Coalition (ASWC) teacher externship program.
Teachers from disciplines ranging from STEM to Career and Technical Education were welcomed by Bill Rafferty, south central director of TMAC, and process improvement expert, Jim Caldwell, and treated to a morning of interactive exercises related to manufacturing. The goal of the activities was to provide teachers with dynamic ways to teach students about lean manufacturing principles and fun ways of applying various calculations to everyday scenarios, such as using Little’s Law (the relation between throughput, inventory, and lead time – widely used in manufacturing) to calculate the amount of time a person will stand in line for an amusement park ride.
The externship program aims to both raise awareness for career options for students and to provide teachers with real-world applications of math and science to take back to the classroom. During the program, teachers visit several industry sites and develop experiential-based learning curricula to implement with students. As San Antonio seeks to cultivate more talent in STEM-based fields, teacher externship experience plays a critical role in increasing the knowledge of educators of career opportunities and adds to the relevancy and dynamic application of math and science concepts.
These teachers were part of a larger group of more than 150 educators from the 12-county Alamo region participating in the ASWC 2019 Teacher Externship program, now in its fourth year of programming. Since inception, more than 1,000 educators have gone through the externship program. SwRI was one of the early champions of the program. Other externship company hosts include H-E-B, USAA, Zachary Group, Joeris General Contractors, Toyota, and Booz Allen.
The Alamo STEM Workforce Coalition is a collaborative effort between Education Resource Center Region-20, the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the Alliance for Technology Education in Applied Math and Science, UP Partnership, UTSA Academy for Teacher Excellence, SA Works, and Workforce Solutions Alamo. For more information about how to get involved with the ASWC, visit their website.
