As education systems strive to keep up with an increasingly tech-centered workforce, many STEM and STEAM programs have emerged in schools to train the future generations. But Dr. Bradley Bowen sees a gap.

“There’s very limited professional development for teachers in STEM,” Bowen said. “There’s a LOT for students. Not near as much for teachers.”

Who’s teaching the teachers?

This is the question that motivates Bowen, a North Carolina born engineer who moved to Fargo as North Dakota State University’s head of teacher education /construction management and engineering. A few years ago he started a program through NDSU called Educators in Industry, as a way to give teachers hands-on experience in the workforce.

“Teachers are challenged to teach students what their life will be like in traditional workforce,” Bowen said. “But if you have a traditional teaching experience, you don’t know whats going on in the workforce.”

Educators in Industry changes all that. The program tosses teachers into the workforce via a four week summer internship at a local tech company. Teachers work full-time for four days a week, focusing on group projects in engineering and design, and then meet every Friday with fellow participants to discuss their work. After the program, they develop a STEM-based lesson plan and implement it in their classroom.

The teachers in the program not only come away with experience, but the credibility to tell students that they have first hand experience in the workforce industry, Bowen said.

“I had that work experience…and I felt like that was extremely valuable for me to make those authentic connections in the classroom,” said Bowen, who worked as a civil engineer for years before joining higher ed. “The teachers who do this program can now say,  ‘I did work out there, and this is what employees are looking for.'”

There’s other incentives for the teachers too. The program counts as a 2 credit course in the summer that can go towards professional development, pay scale, grad credit, or license renewal.

Holly Erickson, STEM Outreach Coordinator at NDSU, was the first person to participate in the program after it launched in 2011. She was placed in partnering company John Deere.

“I learned what are they doing and how can I incorporate it into my classroom,” Erickson said. “In the end if we do outreach but don’t have teachers who can sustain it in the classroom, there’s no point.”

North Dakota Teachers Respond

The program saw steady success for the first few years after launching in 2011, Bowen said. A year after Holly, 4 teachers participated. Then 6, 9, and last year, 10.

But then, last winter, Bowen landed some legislative funding to help scale the program. An e-mail was sent out to every teacher in North Dakota about it, Bowen said. For 2016 they already have 40 applications.

“We’ve gone from single digits to 10, and now we have 40 applications,” he said, laughing. “This is a big year.”

Part of accommodating the influx of new applicants is partnering with more businesses across the state, Bowen said. Right now they partner with 8 companies: John Deere, Bobcat, Sanford Health, Microsoft, Ulteig Engineering, Moore, KLJ and Caterpillar.

They have expanded their audience as well, opening it up to not just teachers, but guidance counselors, career counselors, administrators, and anyone who is an admin in the school system.

Applications have come in from Grand Forks to Williston, and from as rural as Rugby and Belcourt. The more rural areas may be harder to find companies to place in, Bowen said. Regardless, he hopes to place every teacher that has applied, he said.

Over the next 5 years he expects to receive more funding to be able to scale it even more. Which, when you’re teaching teachers, the ability to scale is exponential, Bowen said.

“Say we have a camp that exposes 30 students to programs. If you bring in 30 teachers – each of those teachers is teaching how many students?” he said. “I think you have a bigger impact if you’re teaching the teachers how to teach the kids. There is another space for teachers to be taught that is being underutilized.”

For more information contact Bradley Bowen at bradley.bowen@ndsu.edu

Photos courtesy of NDSU Educators in Industry program.