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| From the Classroom to the Cubicle: MITRE Sponsors Externships for Local Teachers September 2009 When high school math teachers Ashley McGrath and Karen Strader arrived at MITRE's Bedford, Mass. campus this
summer, neither had worked outside of a school environment. But after six weeks in the Center for Integrated Intelligence Systems (CIIS), they have a new perspective and lots of ideas they say they can't wait to apply to their classrooms. McGrath and Strader are part of the Leadership Initiatives for Teaching and Technology (LIFT2) program, a professional learning program for middle and high school science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers designed to help them relate classroom curriculum to real-world workplaces. It was created by the Massachusetts Metro South/West Regional Employment Board, a nonprofit workforce development organization, to address the state's growing shortage of STEM professionals, and is comprised of graduate coursework and company-sponsored externships. MITRE has been involved with LIFT2 for three years, sponsoring externs to work on a variety of projects. Steve Boczenowski, section leader in the Cryptography and Information Assurance Research department within CIIS, supervised McGrath and Strader's work this summer. Boczenowski said he had originally planned to hire just one extern, but he was equally impressed by McGrath and Strader and decided there was enough work for both of them. During the school year, McGrath teaches algebra II, pre-calculus and consumer math to students at Westwood High School. At MITRE, she did quality assurance work, testing MITRE-developed software to identify problems (bugs), tracking them in a database, and categorizing them to make it easier for the developers to create fixes. Strader teaches geometry, algebra II and pre-calculus at Framingham High School. At MITRE she helped market a free MITRE-created Benchmark Development Course that shares details of the Secure Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), a naming system that combines a number of methods used to enumerate software flaws and configuration issues related to security. She had to identify the audience for the course, find them, contact them, convince them to come, and then make the course easily accessible. "I had to take a bit of a leap of faith with both of them, knowing they would have to learn so much in a short period of time," Boczenowski said "Not just about their individual projects, but about MITRE and working in an office setting. They have both been terrific additions to my team and I couldn't be happier with the results." McGrath and Strader say their experience reinforced the importance of educating their students about the skills they need to succeed in today's workplace—the ability to clearly express their ideas (in written and verbal form), to adapt to new situations by applying existing skills, to collaborate well with others, and most importantly, to be self-directed and willing to figure things out on their own. "We don't always prepare our students for the myriad possibilities they'll face in the real-world," Strader said. "I hope to go back to my students and focus more on the bigger picture and less on memorizing formulas. We need to focus on using critical thinking and creativity to solve problems. Those are skills they can apply no matter what type of work they do." Jim Stanton, the LIFT2 program coordinator, said that is precisely what the program is all about—to provide teachers with an opportunity to see the real world applications of STEM. "If our students are not prepared for working in technology-based organizations, we're not going to help our country grow," Stanton said. "I could not have hoped for a better opportunity for our teachers. MITRE is a true champion of the LIFT program, providing a rich experience for teachers that will help them make a substantial impact in their classrooms." While McGrath's and Strader's externship work at MITRE is complete, Boczenowski hopes to continue the connection by arranging a field trip for their students to visit MITRE this Fall so they too can experience the real-world, first-hand. —by Lauren R. Libitz Page last updated: October 8, 2009 | Top of page |
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