The 3E Institute and the Chester County Workforce Investment Board are partners in a new 21st Century Educator Externship and Collaborative Student Career Awareness program.  Last summer the WIB provided course tuition for four of five 3E teacher externs at Chester County School Districts and covered additional costs for the five teachers to lead student career awareness activities. In this way the 3E Institute is facilitating educator and student contact with employers that connect and motivate students to pursue high growth careers in health care, information technology, manufacturing, and energy. The primary goals of the program are:

• Immerse Educators in the Modern Workplace and translate experiences into Real World course   content and activities for their students, such as job-shadowing in partnering industries
• Increase educators’ knowledge of the strategic skills employers seek in new employees
• Support the career pathways of students
• Foster educator/student interactions with industry partners that create new opportunities for success
• Correlate experiences with Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Career Education and Work and align curriculum with the needs of the 21st Century workforce

Four teachers and one alternate teacher successfully completed the 21st Century Educator Externship summer
program from June 24, 2008 through September 30, 2008.

They are Colleen Bond, Downingtown East High School; Stephen Finnegan, Kennett Consolidated Middle School; Deborah Kearney, Lionville Elementary School; Patricia Lang, Chester County IU Center for Arts and Technology/Brandywine; and Joe O’Sullivan, Kennett Consolidated Middle School.

The teachers are now in the second half of this program.  They are designing their objectives for the student career awareness project.  The teachers are creating plans of how to support and mentor a group of students in the knowledge of workforce technologies and processes. As the K-12 school year develops, the Institute is tracking and supporting the progress in completing the activities, which should yield some exciting and unique curricular innovations and experiences for students, thanks to the support and interest of the Chester County Workforce Investment Board.  Thanks, Partners!!

This program is funded in part by The Regional Career Education Partnership (RCEP): an initiative of the Chester County Workforce Investment Board (WIB), coordinated by the Chester County Economic Development Council, with grant funds received from the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board.