SWEPT Experience Transfer

Within this web page, you will learn more about Translating Experience, Classroom Benefits, and Access to Industry, Higher Education, and Government.

Translating Experience

A major goal of SWEPT programs is having teachers translate their experiences into a richer educational environment for their students through both pedagogical and content changes. Many programs require teachers to submit an action plan at the end of the summer. Action plans apply the teachers' work experiences to their classrooms. Since most teachers create transportable plans, usable by others with minor modifications, many programs maintain catalogs of action plans to help spread the SWEPT benefits to nonparticipating teachers.

Internship programs often include a segment devoted to developing action plans, instructional materials and activities, and using the SWEPT experience to effect change in their schools. This component gives teachers a structure to help convert their new knowledge into enhanced classroom experiences for students. Setting aside time for teachers to meet together before this segment increases the effectiveness of this conversion effort. If resources permit, a curriculum expert may facilitate.

Questions for this segment may include:

  • What skills are transferable?

  • How can skills be incorporated into daily teachings?

  • How can one teach the general skills and the work ethic employers require such as teamwork, computer skills, promptness, problem solving, attendance, punctuality, and responsiveness?

  • How can mentors and/or industry colleagues be involved in development and/or implementation of classroom projects?

  • How can mentors participate at the school site and students participate at the internship site?

  • How can mentors participate as consultants or troubleshooters to refine the action plan and overcome any obstacles to successful implementation?

Action plans derived from SWEPT programs often contain similar underlying concepts. IISME, for example, uses the following topics to assist teachers in developing their action plans:

Teamwork:
Groups of students work together to complete a task, with each member having different responsibilities. Requires cooperation, the ability to work with others, responsibility towards the group, and understanding of the impact of relationships between functions.

Problem Solving:
Plans and implements change, involves risk-taking, develops a strategy or plan with a sense of ownership in the process, and implements and evaluates the plan's effectiveness.

Career Awareness:
General information about careers and job opportunities in the mathematics, science, and technology fields. Emphasizes the importance of literacy, including computer literacy, in these areas for the workplace and explains the need to study them. Presents information about changes in careers and the workforce in the coming decades. Discusses the role of a strong educational foundation in adequately preparing students for this environment.

Interpersonal and Communication Skills, Work Habits, and Ethics:
Works well with others, presents information clearly and correctly in verbal and written form, displays a sense of responsibility for doing a job well, explains professional ethics, and demonstrates good work habits, such as attendance, promptness, adherence to deadlines, and respect for others' work.

Updating Content:
Revises content by using relevant, up-to-date examples and illustrations from industry and introduces new topics in the curriculum.

School/Work Interaction:
Develops stronger bonds between teachers and their mentors and builds a relationship between schools and workplaces, brings workplace personnel into the schools and school personnel into workplaces to share ideas, insights, and strategies for educational improvement, and consistently places students in direct contact with workplace personnel.

Mentors often work with teachers to develop classroom projects incorporating current research techniques. Use materials and activities that relate to the existing curriculum and are appropriate for the students' educational development and experience.

Classroom Benefits

Teachers who apply their internship experience to the classroom answer students' questions about subject relevance. Using high-profile, current examples, such as those from the space industry, computer or biotechnology research firms, or prominent corporations, enliven classroom discussions by making subjects more interesting.

Classroom instruction often is modified as a result of the internship experience. Though teachers gain new knowledge and capabilities in a wide range of areas, experience shows that the most obvious changes occur in career counseling, skills development, content revision, and resource access.

Career Counseling

Teachers return to their classrooms with a wealth of information about careers available in science, mathematics, and technology fields and the education and training needed to pursue these careers. Students benefit when their teachers share this information and discuss the appropriate courses for receiving the necessary technical training.

Beyond information about specific careers, teachers also discuss the general skills needed to compete in the workforce. They focus on skills, such as computer literacy, required for future jobs and emphasize the importance of lifelong learning for growth and development.

Skills Development

The educator's work experience produces an increased awareness of the importance of teamwork and good communication skills, work habits, and problem-solving abilities in the workplace, and encourages more emphasis on these skills in the classroom. While teaching communication skills is not commonly the role of mathematics, science, and technology teachers, they can incorporate good communication concepts into their instruction. For example, a teacher can require students to present oral or written reports and require them to keep daily journals of their work experiences. Reinforcing promptness and self-discipline among students promotes good work habits.

During the SWEPT experience, interns develop a different view of the purposes and processes involved in working together. In the workplace, teachers learn successful project completion requires input, cooperation, and commitment from various professionals with unique skills and perspectives. Following SWEPT placements, teachers assign projects requiring teamwork in their classes. The internship experience reinforces the value of teaching the skills necessary for the inevitable teamwork situations students will encounter in the future.

Updating Content

The internship leads teachers to revise the content of lectures and laboratory activities. Adjusting the amount of time spent on certain topics helps to reflect more accurately current concepts in research and the workplace. Integrating mathematics and science concepts parallels the lack of subject boundaries encountered at the host sites. When possible, teachers also incorporate more technology into their classrooms to reflect the universal use of computers in the workforce.

Teachers leave internships with a different view of problem solving. Host-site problems are more challenging and complex than the contrived exercises often used in the classroom. Interns modify class assignments to provide more challenging, open-ended problems for their students, often based on their internship experience.

Pedagogical Changes

Teachers can develop instructional materials and activities that let students scientifically investigate a specific topic. These products teach students how to:

  • pose pertinent questions about a particular subject as scientists pose questions related to their disciplines;

  • develop hypotheses;

  • conduct careful experiments; and

  • collect, analyze, interpret, and evaluate data, transforming it to answer original questions and to state conclusions.

Gradually, teaching styles are affected by the internship program. Numerous factors influence the amount of time required to make substantive changes in the curriculum and teaching methods. To realize the many benefits of SWEPTs, school districts, industry, and the entire community must remain committed to the program.

Access to Industry, Higher Education, and Government

Encourage teachers to maintain relationships with their mentors and draw upon the mentors' resources and expertise in planning classroom activities. School visits from industry personnel and field trips to industry facilities are examples. Often, the host sites make contributions of equipment or small stipends for teachers to use in their classrooms during the following school year.