What a summer it was!
As a teacher, I have been lucky enough to be a part of some outstanding summer opportunities, but this externship with RRieth–Riley is at the top.
As a way to create more engaging and authentic learning opportunities, I spent the summer seeing and working in areas of the company that were truly eye-opening. For roughly 6 weeks, I took part in testing, estimating, bidding, paving, pouring, and management within the Indianapolis area. All of my experiences allowed me to create new hands-on content for students. At the same time, I was able to build new relationships with industry personnel who have been more than willing to help in content creation or speak to students about opportunities in the industry. These connections have been invaluable in shaping the educational content I can provide to my students.
As my externship was coming together, I had no idea what to expect, who I would work with, and at what level. It was with the help of Brian Carlson and Scott Stine that I really started to see how this opportunity could be shaped. A large amount of my 6 weeks was spent in testing.
This was outstanding from the education standpoint because I could complete testing steps in the same way that could be done in a classroom. This is key when providing instruction for students. If a teacher is not capable of completing the tasks that are assigned to the students, how is it the student should be expected to complete the task? This hands-on experience gave me ideas of all new ways that I could build experiences with students. It also allowed me time to create new content that can be directly tied back to real-world experiences.
After my time in testing, I spent a little over a week in the estimating department working with Eric Jordan. This was a very eye-opening experience. For the first time, I better understood how the project is packaged and bid on. I knew some information before this, but it was only in the vertical construction industry. I found this experience enlightening because I could make direct connections to how students prepare presentations and how the project is bid on. This made for great content to bring back into the classroom.
With the time I had left, I was paired up with Dylan Fox, who has been on the 465/69 interchange project. The pace of the day was great and reinforced how lessons and deadlines in the classroom directly relate to a real-world project. Outside of new content based around the use of materials and methods, including an overnight deck pour, it was unbelievable! What I found to be the most impactful, however, was the interactions between workers.
All too often, we as teachers focus primarily on the knowledge of the job and push aside the fact that our students will need to be able to communicate productively. This made me re-evaluate the first few weeks of my instruction to push communication between people so that the students are better prepared to communicate with people of all ages and backgrounds when they start working.
This experience has led me to creating new content that I would have struggled developing before and even more so a better application of the trade and the people in it. I cannot express enough the incredible time I had in those 6 weeks! I recommend that anyone interested in creating an opportunity like mine reach out to schools and find teachers or students who want to know more. Trust me when I say this: for every positive connection you make with a teacher or school, you will forever have a team of individuals who will promote your company and the work that you do.