One of the more popular booths at the ACTE convention in Las Vegas this past December was the one for GDJ Inc. It may have been the roller coaster that drew people?s attention, but it was Jack Gilbert who was able to keep their attention. One of the reasons he was able to relate so well to the educators at the convention is that he himself is a former career and technical educator.
It was while he was teaching powerplant in an aviation mechanics course that he saw the need for a wind tunnel. He believed that if his students could see an actual display of aerodynamics?rather than simply viewing it as an abstract concept on a chalkboard?it would better enable them to understand the principles involved.
When Aviation High School, where he was teaching, was closed in 1996, he made the decision to build wind tunnels and other technology exploration products as a business.
According to Gilbert, "The primary goal of the company now is to produce pre-engineering/physics equipment for high schools, technical schools and four-year universities. We are trying very hard to produce equipment that will interest the students and provide a different means of learning mathematics, science and physics."
His company now markets roller coasters, wind tunnels and pre-engineering labs. Drawing on his experiences teaching in a career and technical education classroom, Gilbert hopes to provide schools with equipment that will assist the learning process in both technical fields and in academics such as science and math.
"When I was teaching, I found that many of the ?not college material? students I had could very easily handle more difficult concepts if they directly related to something real," explains Gilbert. "My goal is to teach the concepts with interesting equipment that produces accurate repeatable data."
For more information about GDJ Inc. and its products, visit
www.gdjinc.com.
In September 2001, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $10 million to the Western Governors University (WGU) to help create a teachers college that would provide accredited, online degrees and certificates to K-12 teachers and prospective teachers. On March 10, 2003, the department officially announced the launching of the online WGU Teachers College.
According to Secretary of Education Rod Paige, the new online program will help in the goals of raising academic standards for teachers and removing the barriers that are keeping talented people from becoming classroom teachers.
Paige says that, although this program is just getting started, he sees "a world of promise ahead of it."
He notes that it will help states with rural districts where paraprofessionals have no access to local universities, and it can also benefit those in the military, since they can take online courses even while stationed overseas.
"Because of programs like this, adults can save time and money and find reasonable routes into the classroom," says Paige. "Without them, we could risk losing a precious national resource: dedicated Americans willing to give back to our children."
Western Governors University is nationally accredited by the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council and is regionally accredited by four regional accrediting commissions. For more information, visit
www.wgu.edu.
The Center on Education and Work has published its 2003 catalog of school-to-career resources. Included are materials on career planning, occupational equity, integrating occupational and academic education, and school-to-career transition. The Center on Education and Work is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has as its mission enhancing the career-related learning of all individuals, both in schools and in the workplace. The organization publishes educational resources?for instructors and students?for kindergarten through postsecondary education. Their new school-to-career resource catalog is available both in print and online. For more information, visit
www.cew.wisc.edu.
