This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that will be shared at the Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.

Presenter Stefonie Sebastian is a Team Leader of the National FFA Organization; and co-presenter Dedra Andreko is Program Manager of the National FFA Organization, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Have you ever wondered how you would truly engage our students in their education? Well, then this session is for you! During this interactive session with the Living to Serve team from the National FFA Organization, you will learn how to utilize service-learning to truly set a new standard of engagement for your students. Learn how agriculture education teachers are implementing this pedagogy in their classrooms to increase grades, attendance and social responsibility as well as how it applies to other CTE areas. Participants of this session will:

•Understand the differences between community service, experiential learning and service-learning
•Learn the benefits of utilizing service-learning in CTE programs
•Implement the steps to develop a service-learning project

We look forward to sharing with you how service-learning has truly moved the National FFA Organization forward in ensuring that we are developing students potential for premiere leadership, personal growth and career success through agriculture education.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that will be shared at the upcoming Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.

Shauna King, M.Ed., is passionate about working with today’s teachers to help keep their skills sharp and their students at the top of their learning game. King is currently a graduate course instructor with The Regional Training Center. She has worked in various roles in public and non-public school settings, including principal, program and intervention specialist, peer mediation teacher and classroom teacher. Shauna worked as the PBIS coordinator in one of the largest school districts in the state of Maryland and served as a state-level trainer through Maryland PBIS State Leadership Team.

Research has demonstrated that strength in executive-function skills is more important to academic success than IQ. Children with solid executive-function abilities are happier, more resilient and independent, use time wisely, possess excellent social skills, are effective problem solvers, and are more self-aware and socially attuned. More than any other education adults can provide, teaching children executive function skills places them on the most direct path to success and happiness.

The New IQ is a highly-interactive, “learn and do” workshop that highlights brain imaging video, movement and manipulatives to ensure engagement, extended attention, and tactics to deepen memory as methods and approaches to help enhance a student’s executive-function skills.

Participants in this workshop will first learn what constitutes an executive function skill and where these thinking processes happen in the brain. The workshop identifies the “Top 7 Skills for School and Life Success” and provides parents and teachers practical tools for assessing executive-function abilities in their children and students.

Participants will then be introduced to a variety of exercises and techniques to directly teach the Top 7 Skills to children at every developmental level, pre-school through college.

Testimonials
“This is the first time I’ve been to a training and never got bored. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about executive functions skills and I also enjoyed the presenter.”
—Participant at Punahou School District, Honolulu, HI

“Please take this workshop if you can, the information is valuable and can be used and put to practical use immediately and benefit all. Great energy, well presented and funny too.”
—Maria Nickelson, Loudon County Family Services, VA

“Thank you for simplifying the information. It helps with making all the concepts to be meaningful and memorable. I enjoyed learning about how the brain works and the strategies that can be used to help children learn the executive functions.”
—Participant at Alamo

Learn more about what the strength in executive-function skills by attending King’s presentation entitled The New IQ at the 2012 Career Clusters™ Institute.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that is being shared at the Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.

Nancy Null is a Curriculum Lead at Towson University in Towson, Maryland and Co-Director at Maryland CTE IT Program Affiliate.

Why aren’t Career Technical Education (CTE) instructors providing the professional development to academic disciplines around Common Core State Standards? Having taught in both academic (English) and CTE (Cisco Networking Academy) worlds, I can state unequivocally that academic teachers have much to learn from any outstanding CTE instructor.

Standards are nothing new to either academic or CTE worlds; however, CTE standards do more closely model that common set of skills now recognized as crucial to both college-and career-readiness. Moreover, exemplary real-world CTE instruction more closely aligns with the learning style of today’s youth than the paper-centric, two-dimensional world of traditional academia.

Don’t get me wrong: I loved teaching English. But I found myself continually searching outside the literary box for ways to connect my students to a real world of prose and poetry that spoke to them. Making that connection from “the other side”—from CTE to reading, writing, speaking and listening—was much easier. My Cisco students were already comfortable and confident in their technical world, armed with knowledge just waiting to be communicated. They could connect to authentic contexts for the “deeper dive” that the Common Core State Standards require.

CTE teachers have long and deep experience shaping and guiding diverse populations of students toward common industry-standard goals; we know that real education takes place only when teachers have a reason to teach, and students have a reason to learn. We can lead the way in creating a real 21st century schoolhouse—a place where students hear the same message in all classes, meet the same expectations, and develop the same skillsets throughout their educational experience. That schoolhouse will be standards-driven, but there will be nothing “standard” about it!

Come hear more at our session: Techniques to Show Alignment to National Education Standards (Common Core) and How to Use Them, Tuesday, June 19: 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.

You’ll see a process one technology education program uses to map and document alignment to national education standards such as Common Core and STEM, and the tool I use to help education institutions articulate alignment and hear from one university how they put into action.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that is being shared at the Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.

Sonja Wright-McMurray is the Associate Director for the Arkansas Department of Career Education – Career and Technical Education Division (Arkansas Works). She is the founding Director and responsible for providing statewide oversight of the Arkansas Works Initiative. Wright-McMurray holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Education in Higher Education Administration from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She also holds a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from Drake University.
As Career and Technical Education (CTE) administrators and teachers try to ensure that a qualified workforce stands ready to fill 21st century jobs, one of our struggles is ensuring our students are college- and career-ready. That is the mission of Arkansas Works.

Arkansas Works is a collaborative effort among the departments of Career Education, Education, Higher Education, Workforce Services, and Economic Development; the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority; the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges, and the State Chamber of Commerce.

Funded by the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, this initiative is a three-component system that includes:

•The Arkansas College and Career Planning System, a web-based career planning system powered by Kuder™;
•The College and Career Coaches Program and;
•The ACT Academy Program

Over the past two years, Arkansas Works has addressed the issue of students being under-prepared to pursue postsecondary education and enter the workforce in the most impoverished areas of the state. The program strongly emphasizes the benefits of CTE courses, apprenticeship programs and work-based learning opportunities. Arkansas high schools served by the program have seen an increase in applications for financial aid, increase in the college-going rate, increase in ACT scores, increase in opportunities for employment and a decrease in the amount of students taking remediation courses at the postsecondary level.

Learn more about how you replicate this program and achieve similar results in your state for your students by attending Sonja’s session at the National Career Clusters™ Institute: Arkansas Works – Creating a Competitive Workforce through State and Community Collaboration on Wednesday, June 20.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that will be shared at the upcoming Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June. The session highlighted below is a pre-session, which is scheduled for Monday, June 18, 2012, 8:30 a.m. -11:30 a.m.

Helen Winter is an education consultant for Career Communications, Inc./American Careers Educational Programs. She has twenty-one years of secondary classroom experience, ten years of post-secondary teaching and administrative experience, two years working in a government position, and two years as a small business owner. At the post-secondary level, she has written curriculum funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She also served as an academic advisor for students. She directed and participated in the development and correlation of curriculum for grades six through twelve, serving as a department chairperson.

Think about the people who developed your cell phone, MP3 player, computer, car and all those other devices that are important in your life. Just about anything you use from the time you wake up until you go to sleep are all products of STEM – an acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. STEM It Up! is a program designed to help you make connections between the separate STEM disciplines and to recognize how each relates to the other. The program will help you to find a way to use your interests and skills in high-demand, high-paying occupations – occupations that don’t necessarily require a college degree. And even if you don’t want to pursue one of these occupations, your life will most likely be structured around devices and processes that integrate STEM concepts. In fact …STEM It Up! is

• for all students
• focused on real life
• all about the influence of technology

So ignore the stereotypes, because STEM It Up! IS NOT …
• for only the best and brightest students
• for only college-bound students
• for only students who are interested in mathematics and science

Schools usually teach the four parts of STEM in separate courses. With STEM It Up! you will be learning science and mathematics with technology and engineering in mind – a creative and innovative way to learn. Using science, technology, engineering and mathematics together is a powerful way to develop the knowledge and skills to create, design, innovate and think critically – and to use that knowledge and those skills in the real world.

A background in STEM will give you confidence to consider jobs in industries beyond those usually associated with science and mathematics. Completing STEM It Up! will prepare you to continue on an academic path that leads to all STEM-related jobs.

This pre session is full at this time – thanks to all who registered!

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

The Institute is coming. Are you ready? This webinar will answer your questions about arriving, what to do once at the Omni, your options as a guest, the sessions and all the excitement surrounding the 10th National Career Clusters™ Institute, including a preview of the Common Career Technical Roll out Session.

When: June 7 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time
Register NOW for the Webinar
THIS WEBINAR WILL BE RECORDED SO YOU CAN ACCESS IT AT A LATER DATE.
Not registered for the National Career Clusters Institute? You still have time. Registration is open until June 6. Register NOW

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that will be shared at the upcoming Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.

Dr. James R. Stone, III is the Director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) at the University of Louisville. Dr. Stone’s research has focused on strategies that improve the capacity of CTE programs to improve the engagement, achievement, and transition of secondary and postsecondary CTE participants, including longitudinal studies on the effects of work-based learning and the effect of whole-school, CTE-based school reforms on educational outcomes of youth in high-poverty communities. A former editor for the Journal of Vocational Education Research, Stone has published numerous articles, books, and book chapters on CTE.

Programs of study (POS) are the most recent effort in the United States to improve the transition of youth from high school to the workplace. In most industrialized nations, one national institution governs education; in the United States, schools, state and local governments, and business organizations—operating in very loose partnerships with the federal government—have sought to support youth in successfully and efficiently transitioning from public education to further education or careers.

As a result, the default structural support for youth transition to the labor market has become what most term “college,” usually defined as a degree from a two-year or four-year postsecondary institution. Believing that the high school diploma no longer signifies a meaningful standard of achievement, and lacking a national system of industry credentials, employers have come to rely on college degrees as proof of preparedness and competency. This assumption has, for better or worse, led to the notion of “college for all” as the best means of preparing all youth for the emergent labor market.

“College for all” has evolved in recent years to incorporate the idea that public education ought to prepare youth for college and careers. “College and career readiness” is a phrase that has captured the imagination if not the vocabulary of state and federal policymakers in the United States as the solution to preparing all youth for a successful adulthood.

Yet the youth of today are moving into an uncertain labor market marked by high unemployment, changing skill demands, and intense global competition. POS are seen as the key to achieving a truly career and college-ready high school graduate who will be prepared to succeed in these uncertain times.

Three questions have driven the National Research Center’s POS research agenda, tied to our overarching interest in student engagement, achievement, and transition. If POS are fully implemented:

• Will more students graduate from high school—evidence of their engagement?
• Will students’ academic and technical achievement increase?
• Will more students transition successfully into the workplace or further education and training?

Learn more about what the research shows are the measurable effects of POS on increasing student engagement, improving student achievement, and enhancing student transition to further education and work by attending Jim Stone’s presentation entitled National Research Center for CTE: what the Research Reveals about Programs of Study at the 2012 Career Clusters™ Institute.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that will be shared at the upcoming Career Clusters ™ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.

Jim Gleason, CEO of MBAResearch, is a former high school and college teacher. The MBAResearch and Curriculum Center is a not-for-profit association of some 35 state education departments. The Center’s primary mission is to connect education and business through curriculum research. Along with its research agenda, MBAResearch develops and supports best practice for business and marketing education, including an initiative called High School of Business™ (HSB).

Traditional business and marketing education programs are facing difficult positioning challenges in an education environment focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and academics. As some go-to courses are dropped or moved into elementary and middle schools, and as overall expectations for rigor and accountability are increased, administrators are looking closely at how each course fits into the school’s plans for the future. At the same time, “business” remains the number one declared major for students entering four-year colleges. Similarly, business positions are generally the first or second in terms of job openings and job projections nationally. Considered together, these data suggest that strong, rigorous, relevant Business Administration programs of study should be top-of-mind as schools address priorities for growing and repositioning CTE.

For administrators and teachers interested in rethinking traditional business and marketing programs, the High School of Business™ initiative is one of several options worth considering. Essentially, we’ve built a standards-based program of study targeted specifically at college-bound students planning to major in business. Overall, the curriculum looks a lot like the first series of courses in a college business administration curriculum. The program of study is very accelerated, including higher-level performance indicators and delivered at a pace that is more like college than high school.

In addition to the rigor associated with the curriculum itself, the program emulates college best practice through the use of project-based pedagogy. From the first semester course (of six required), students are expected to begin addressing real-world business challenges in their own communities. Although there are plenty of challenges balancing project-based with required testing, the projects quickly lead to very high levels of student engagement.

As we’d hoped from the beginning, colleges are beginning to take note. Many two-year colleges are offering transcripted credits. And, after five years of demonstration and discussion, the four-year colleges are beginning to recognize the value of connecting with HSB students. Recently, two major universities have announced plans to offer credit to HSB completers. Other negotiations are nearing closure.

Join me in this session for a quick overview of the High School of Business™ model itself and, just as importantly, a candid discussion of the challenges and successes local schools have had with implementation.

Learn more about the High School of Business™ model at Gleason’s breakout session High School of Business for College-Bound CTE Students.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager