Milestone C: Shaping Future STEM Leaders
We are unrivaled in creating experiential STEM programs that emulate industry practices from software to aerospace. Our programs empower schools to stop wasting resources on antiquated content and maximize student engagement.
Where Real Industry Experience Meets EdTech
Career-Connected Content from Fortune 500 Engineers
Our exclusive staff of curriculum authors has over 100 years of collective experience in professional STEM industries and education. We have participated in the development of presidential aircraft; served as lead engineers at Fortune 500 corporations on the global stage. Now we want to pass this experience on to future generations.
Innovative Edtech Partnership
Stemi
For the development of Robotics & Automated Systems, we partnered with STEMI – an EdTech company that aims to accelerate high-tech workforce development by radically reducing the time needed to transfer relevant skills and industry knowledge into educational systems around the world. With their bio-inspired robotics platform, students learn important industry 4.0 technical skills like 3D modeling, mobile app development, and embedded programming.
Our Approach: Non-Linear Learning
The Milestone C approach is to provide applied, hands-on context for the baseline STEM education all students receive in secondary schools. Our project-based curricula serve as learning laboratories where students’ interests are transformed, through hands-on experience, into substantiated confidence to make educated decisions about their futures, college and beyond.
Teaching the Smartphone Generation
The human mind retrieves information much more effectively in contexts that resemble the original learning environment. Therefore, we believe in teaching students in the context that they will apply the subject knowledge and skills. All Milestone C curricula are built upon activities and projects that emulate real-world experiences. These include technical staff meetings, design reviews, job interviews, formal presentations to a customer, and much more.
Professional organizations from all industries operate on context-based retrieval principles. Corporations employ internship programs that groom future employees by immersing students into the real-world business environment. The U.S. Military adopts the “train like we fight” mentality, understanding the necessity of training environments that emulate real-world contingencies. In Milestone C, we developed a “Non-Linear Learning” technique based on the following philosophies:
Controlled Chaos
Controlled chaos is a highly-effective learning environment. 21st Century STEM professionals work in cross-functional teams and progress takes effort. Educational environments that eliminate the potential for miscommunication, competing objectives, confusion, and even reasonable frustration also inadvertently eliminate the most valuable teamwork lessons.
Non-Intervention
Hands off teaching is the single best facilitator of hands-on learning. In the professional environment, it takes research to get to the information. Even then, data may be unclear, untimely, out of order, and conflicting. Allowing students to obtain and process information without frequent interjections is critical to broadening their horizons.
Rewarded failure
Encouraging innovative approaches without fear of failure will groom critical thinkers. Shaping future STEM professionals begins with enabling and empowering students to learn from their failures. The primary objective of any project-based program should be to get students comfortable with problem-solving without a single “correct” answer.
We’re Engineers, Educators, and Managers
We’re also moms and dads who want to empower our kids to use their imagination and create a better world
David Conelias
Co-Founder | COO | Instructor
Dave completed his undergraduate degree at Union College and master’s at Fairfield University. He has had an exciting engineering career in both large and small corporations with leadership experience in commercial and military development programs. Dave’s engineering career evolved in a unique fashion, crossing disciplinary boundaries between electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, hydraulics engineering, and pneumatic engineering. Over the years, Dave has held positions of rapidly increasing responsibility as a design engineer, process engineer, systems engineer, project lead, and lead systems engineer. His background exemplifies Milestone C’s “direct from industry” approach to curriculum development. Dave lives in Woodbridge, Connecticut with his wife Jen and daughters Ava and Julia.
Josh Gilbert
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) | Instructor
Josh has over 15 years of experience as an avionics systems engineer at a Fortune 500 company. During his tenure, he has led product development as a subject matter expert for various aircraft systems, employing the engineering process life cycle from the proposal phase to customer flight test acceptance. He recently joined the team in 2018 upon returning from a three-year assignment as a program technical lead and liaison in Ottawa, CA. Leveraging his diverse skill sets and experience, Josh employs real-world industry-based approaches to teaching and curriculum development. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst with a BSE in Computer Engineering, and holds an MSE in Electrical Engineering and MBA from the University of New Haven. He lives in Wallingford, Connecticut where he enjoys spending quality time with his wife and three children.
Kelsey Sewell
STEM Educator & Curriculum Lead
Kelsey joins Milestone C with a wealth of professional experience in education management and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Expertise in curriculum development, standards mapping, differentiated instruction, and 8 years of hands-on classroom management as an educator uniquely position her to transform complex STEM topics into grade-appropriate internship experiences for Milestone C students. Kelsey obtained her graduate degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, where she also earned her undergraduate degree in Elementary Education. Prior to Milestone C, she worked in several public school districts driven by her passion for teaching science and exploring innovative education technologies. Kelsey currently lives in Shelton, Connecticut with her husband and son, along with their two dogs and cats.