I am always looking for opportunities to bring real world experiences to my students and Externing in the STEM program for the fourth summer allows me to do just that! This summer, I have had the privilege to return to Idaho Launch, which is part of Idaho Workforce Development Council, as well as partner with St. Luke’s Workforce Planning and Innovation at the same time.

The Partnership
Idaho Launch provides grants to graduating seniors to pursue post-secondary education or training in-demand careers. St. Luke’s is also concerned with filling in-demand careers that are vital to their growing healthcare system both in clinical and non-clinical roles. The partnership formed out of their mutual desire to make students aware of both healthcare career and grant opportunities in Idaho’s mandated middle school Career Exploration class, prior to planning for high school classes and beyond.

My Project
Initially we met as a team to determine the challenges, objectives, and constraints of delivering curriculum to Career Exploration teachers. From that meeting, we decided to produce easily executable lessons, with minimal preparation for teachers. The objective was to target in-demand careers while at the same time integrating the Idaho Launch program. The goal of my project was to design the framework, ideas, lessons, and materials.

Over the summer, I planned a structure of three lessons for Unit 2 of the class, which focuses on Career Exploration, primarily for St. Luke’s, and three lessons for Unit 3, which focuses on future planning, including workplace ready skills, for Idaho Launch.

For Unit 2, I created three lessons (PowerPoints and materials) in healthcare careers that included hands-on activities that allowed students to explore roles from Radiological Technologists, Certified Surgical Technologists, and Pharmacy Technicians to Respiratory Therapists and Cyber Security. These also included student interest inventories and career pathway plans. All materials were branded with both St. Luke’s and Idaho Launch. For Unit 3, a second set of lessons (also PowerPoints and materials) utilized a workplace simulation that focused on workplace ready skills with the end product being a 30 second Instagram style video highlighting Idaho Launch.

For My Students:
During the school year, I plan to continue to promote career opportunities to my 8th grade students, who will be creating their 4-year high school class planners in the Spring, which often include college preparatory and CTE courses.

Last year, I began to show career videos every day during attendance, focusing on in-demand careers and promoting those opportunities, along with the Launch grant. The videos proved to be of high interest for my students, and I will continue to do that this year along with aligning classroom expectations to work ready skills needed in future careers.