AFSF Teacher Externship Program

The Architectural Foundation of San Francisco's Teacher Externship Program is a partnership with the San Francisco Unified School District's Career Technical Education Division.

In this three week program, classroom teachers from different SFUSD high schools worked with AFSF personnel to develop new curriculum units based on 21st Century Skills for their classrooms. In order to increase their knowledge of how these skills play out in the contemporary workplace, each teacher was placed with a mentor in a firm in San Francisco. These firms ranged from architecture firms, to software companies, to construction firms and newly formed “dot-coms.” Each mentor and firm was specifically chosen to meet the needs of the teachers and their goals for improving their instruction. Teachers spent two mornings with their mentors, and three mornings working on their curriculum units. The overarching goal of the externship program is the creation of new lessons for high school students in a diverse group of classrooms. Each of the teachers used information from their externship experience to develop new approaches to their subject area.

What The Teachers Had To Say

"Getting an overview of the CCI company structure has reminded me of the importance of several values and themes that I promote in the classroom. My time with you has also provided me with several new ideas I will enjoy pursuing in the years to come. Examples of the shared values and new ideas I took away from my time at CCI include: an emphasis on quality, honesty, integrity, accountability, creativity, friendliness and communication. Seeing these values in all of you gave me more than one pause for thought and was a source of inspiration."

"This summer I was given the great opportunity to participate in this internship where I was exposed with the real life situation. I experienced and observed engineers in action and what kind of things they do for a living. At first, I was very intimidated and nervous because I didn't know what to expect. However, after the first day of working with Murphy Burr Curry, INC I felt very confident and fortunate to be working and learning from someone who was making great projects. Steve Curry was very welcoming and I learned a lot from him."

"My time at RMW was 100% useful in understanding systems-especially viewing their work through the prism of a private entity that creates work that affects and is used by the public, and through the lens of economics-how a business finds, plans, and finances their work, and cultivates the professional satisfaction of their staff."

"I have some solid project ideas for students to analyze media productions, taking the program apart and piecing together how each element of a production fits in place with another. I would like to design more challenges in which students approach a problem and come up with a plan whether it is a video or other media format, or even creating sets and backgrounds or a system for video production."

"It was fantastic to be able to explore the 3DS, Revit, and Sketchup software with Catherine and the other teachers. I think all the teachers generated some fantastic lesson plan ideas for next year. It was also great to meet and interact with the State and City officials in charge of CTE and discuss the available programs."

"In twenty years of teaching this is one of the six professional development workshops that I felt was valuable."