Bringing Industry into the Classroom Transcript
Narrator: Through Link Learning, we’re trying to give the kids real world experiences.
Teacher: Continue this, and they’ll put you right back on track. Is it switched here?
Student: Yeah. It’s switched.
Narrator: We are bringing in industry and we’re infusing that into their core curriculum.
Teacher: We should be plugged in to—
Narrator: Ken is a perfect example. He is an engineering teacher here, but he brought with him 15 years of authentic industry experience, and what he speaks about, he knows.
Narrator: I’ve been in the aerospace industry, defense industry, Silicon Valley, so I have a lot of different perspectives of engineering.
Teacher: Make it the thickness you need.
Narrator: The other piece is what he knows is what the industry needs. What CAD software are you using? What drafting software is out there? What’s the design process look like when it’s played out in a real workforce?
Teacher: Thank about it, what should you do?
Student: It definitely helps because they’re speaking from experience, not just from what they think. He’s done this 1,000 times so he knows, well, if that doesn’t work, try this.
Narrator: One of the things we just recently did was we started up a partnership with Sacramento State University and our local utility here, SMUD. Through that, we’re trying to create a pathway to CSU Sacramento and then onto SMUD. One of the highlights of my tenure here was the solar regatta last year, which was where they built the solar boat.
Teacher: This is the paddle wheel for the boat?
Narrator: Our 11th grade class built a boat from scratch with basically two-by-fours and plywood to compete in their race. There was a few constraints we had to follow, like the number of solar panels we could use, the size of the battery. The end result was a wooden boat that placed pretty well in the competition.
Narrator: The take-away academically is they’re actually applying the things that they’re learning in class.
Teacher: Let’s go back to the sketch view. You see how the data plane is in the center?
Student: Yeah.
Teacher: Go back and edit it so it’s drew symmetric. Then you’ll be able to see it.
Narrator: When we’re doing these integrated lesson plans, sometimes I hear, oh, that’s why we did that in class. They’re making that link from the academic coursework that they take and the actual project that they’re working on.
Teacher: You can flip the controller, and that still works.
Student: You just feel kinda glad that all that work you put in paid off.
Teacher: That’s a snake in that turn.
Teacher: I talk to teachers all the time. They may have come from industry, but they’re now teachers, and they say, look, they see me as a teacher, but they also see me as a former industry professional. That credibility is so invaluable.
[End of Audio]
2 Comments
Paige Klumpe Sep 25, 2022 2:41pm
I love how they are bringing things into the classroom that can help students make career choices. It teaches students how things would work in the real world. I also love how they bring people in with real-world experience, so it makes it so they are getting real, true knowledge. They are actually using the information they are learning.
Dennis Patrick Apr 28, 2014 10:59am