BioPath supports advances in K-12 educational and downstream career outcomes for students especially in STEM and Bioscience
Through a partnership between the Biopath program and Office of STEM-IL at SCSU and the Connecticut State Department of Education , we are pleased to launched the Institute for Real World Education and Curriculum Advance (IRWECA). IRWECA is a “made-to-order” program in which only support personnel (i.e., curriculum facilitators and industry professionals) who match the needs of the educator teams who wish to participate are hired and retained.
Objective: the interdisciplinary educator teams will be able to develop and implement interdisciplinary curriculum modules aligned with industry needs and best practices in education.
What the IRWECA team at SCSU does: we will retain the appropriate industry professionals and curriculum facilitators (who will work directly with individual educator teams) and facilitate meetings.
Who can participate:
Interdisciplinary educator teams from schools and districts across Connecticut are invited to apply to the IRWECA program. Teams must consist of at least 3 teachers, one of whom must be a CTE (Career and Technical Education teacher) and two must STEM teachers (i.e., Math, Science, or Computer Science). School counselors and Administrators and Teachers from other disciplines are also encouraged to be part of the team.
Teams must select from among one of the following 3 CTE career clusters including Agriculture (including Aquaculture), Manufacturing (including food products and processing), or Health Care (including Biotechnology).
Prospective schedule
This fall, we will not only be accepting applications but also holding several informational sessions for educators who want to learn more about IRWECA.
Beginning in January, interdisciplinary teams (consisting of at least 3 educators, 1 industry professional, and 1 curriculum facilitator) will meet at times that work well for each team in order to learn more about the needs of their chosen industry as well as plan and develop an interdisciplinary curriculum module. Times will vary per individual team with a 2-hour “working meeting” and a separate 1-hour meeting with at least 1 representative from each team sharing more about their efforts as well as soliciting and offering feedback with regarding to the other participating teams.
During the next academic (school) year, the educators will implement their interdisciplinary curriculum module(s) and will meet once per month as above (each month through December) in order to obtain support from the industry professional and curriculum facilitator assigned to their team.
