pi-top blog

pi-top & Round Rock ISD Externship 2025: Real-World Teaching, Real-World Learning

We just wrapped up an incredible week of collaboration with two outstanding Texas educators from Round Rock ISD’s Externship Program! As part of the district’s mission to connect classroom teaching with industry insight, teachers Robert Kaltenbacher (Cedar Valley Middle School) and Jamie Malone (Success High School) joined pi-top for a deep dive into real-world applications of authentic STEM, AI, data, and inquiry-based learning applications.

Throughout the week, our externs:

• Explored how math, language, and financial literacy skills are used daily in product, software engineering, customer engagement, and investment planning at pi-top.

• Explored purposeful ways to integrate AI tools and prompt engineering into their lessons, leveraging AI to streamline teacher preparation and maximize lesson impact.

• Aligned their lessons to TEKS standards with our learning platform - Further, and designed student-ready, interactive experiences grounded in real-world relevance.
•  

The externs collaborated with many members of our team —from developers to sales leads— to see how educators and industry can meaningfully shape one another’s work. Jamie focused on building a meaningful Personal Financial Literacy lesson, and Robert crafted a music themed Algebra I experience. Both educators used our Inquiry-Based Learning template and the Further Lesson Remixer to transform their concepts into actionable classroom resources.

We’re incredibly proud of what they created—and inspired by their dedication to giving students tools they can use well beyond the classroom.

Stay tuned as we release the lessons on Further!