Project Lead The Way believes a school Partnership Team is an essential piece in linking the school technology program with the community. More important, once formed, the Partnership Team can become a teacher's first community resource in many areas.

What is a Partnership Team?
The Partnership Team is a school advisory group composed of members from the school and the business/industrial/higher education community to assist teachers in the technology program in problem solving and in supporting teachers in the instruction of the curriculum, and in enhancing the program through mentoring and assisting in enrichment activities.

What are some key benefits?

• Provides a community support system for the technology program

• Links the school and the community

• Provides additional resources to students and teachers

• Opens up pathways to students and teachers to career opportunities and further education

How does a school find potential members for a Partnership Team?

• Ask students if their parents work in engineering or engineering technology.

• Ask parents in a questionnaire at Open House if they are engineers or technologists and would be willing to assist the technology program.

• Send a newsletter home about a technology project and ask parents if any of them would be interested in assisting because of their involvement in engineering or technology

• Call parents who are engineers or technologists and ask them if they would be willing to visit your classroom to talk about careers in engineering or about a specific topic, such as statistics, robots, etc.

How does a technology department start the Partnership Team?
Ask one or two parents who have spoken to your class to sit down after school to offer some advice on solving a problem in your digital electronics course, to look at your new equipment to see how it matches their workplace and to arrange for several students to see the equipment in action in an industrial setting, to judge student projects done on equipment, to listen to a group of students share the steps in their project, and to review a PLTW course curriculum to see how it reflects current practice in industry or in colleges.

What steps might you take in actually running the first meeting of the Partnership Team?
Extend an invitation to people who might be interested in being on the Partnership Team to attend an informational meeting and follow these seven steps: ….MORE

How many people should there be in a Partnership Team?
We suggest starting small with a teacher, coordinator of technology, and two/three parents or community members involved in engineering. The PT might grow to eight members over several years or kept relatively small.

How often should a PT meet?
It varies depending on an established agenda based on the needs of the technology department. Some PT's meet twice a year; others meet once a month; a few meet more frequently.

Who runs a PT?
Again, it depends on the feelings of the group. It is most common to have a technology teacher serve as chair. S/he establishes the agenda with input from members of the PT. The chair should develop a written agenda that is sent to members prior to the meeting. An ambitious agenda with the names of members who will be reporting or leading a discussion and the time each topic will take might look like the following:…MORE

What should a Partnership Team NOT be?
The PT is not a group of teachers on one side of the table and community members on the other who are listening to reports or being asked to financially support the program or to encourage the Board of Education to purchase a piece of equipment. If members of the community see themselves as contributing participants in an area of their expertise, they will add immensely to the success of the program in many ways.

What are some examples of how the members of the PT can add to the program?

• Speaking to a group of students about some aspect of the course or their job.

• Welcoming teachers and students to their offices, industry, or college to show their program, their engineering equipment, etc.

• Serving as mentors.

• Talking about the field of engineering: its challenges, its rewards.

• Offering advice on how to use specific equipment.

• Enriching a PLTW unit or, if qualified, teaching one or two periods.

• Evaluating students' oral presentations on some aspect of engineering.

• Leading students through a project the engineer had to solve and showing the finished product. 

• Offering several pathways to engineering careers through a community college, summer employment, and/or through a four-year college

What are the four levels of a sample implementation schedule?
Awareness, Initial Development, Initial Implementation, Implementation…MORE

What are some areas which could lead to an ineffective or nonfunctioning Partnership Team?
According to the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (M. L. Guerin, 1997 Symposium), the following should be considered:

Structural Perspectives:

• Lack of goal clarity

• Roles ambiguous or in conflict

• Lack of skills or knowledge in group members

• Inappropriate membership for the task

• Changing stakeholders.

Social Perspectives

• Inability to give or receive constructive feedback

• Inauthentic behavior

• Blocked resolution of problems

• Cultural gaps or values not shared

Psychodynamic Perspectives

• Stated goal is not the real goal

• Risk of engaging in work too high

• Psychological boundaries not managed

• Insufficient clarity of task, leadership, and roles of containment

What help will you receive from PLTW?

• Contact your PLTW State Leader for advice and support