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 Fort Worth, TX in June. Today’s guest blogger is Dr. John Foster, President/CEO of NOCTI, Big Rapids, MI.

States have varying requirements for certification of Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers who enter the system from alternative paths. In some states, these teachers fall into an “alternative certification” category.  Regardless of whether these individuals have received college-level coursework, they rarely have had extensive preparation to become a teacher, much less a CTE teacher.  Schools hiring these individuals to teach their programs require current industry experience and many times, the trade-off is an individual with limited preparation in teaching pedagogies.

There are many other topics that individuals who go through a traditional teacher certification track are exposed to, including student assessment which focuses on how to use assessments for instructional improvement.  As times have changed, there are additional alternative uses for assessments such as the more formal inclusion of assessments in states’ teacher evaluation models.  Assessments play a key role in each of these areas.

Thanks to a combination of universities, current needs, and NOCTI board members, modules have been developed providing research-based information about assessments.  Though module development was led by NOCTI, the majority of the content it is applicable to any third-party technical assessment.  These modules are available free of charge as a service to the CTE community we serve and focus on two areas:

1) Understanding CTE assessment/certification systems; and

2) Understanding and preparing for teacher and student level competency tests.

While our session is not intended to be a formal training in traditional teaching pedagogy, it will provide helpful information about important components of a classroom setting including assessments, psychometrics, and utilizing data within the classroom. With a high demand for high quality CTE teachers, providing resources for training these individuals to prepare tomorrow’s workforce is extremely important.

Our session will include a review of the developed CTE Teacher Modules and suggest module implementation ideas as part of a professional development workshop, an in-service for newly hired teachers and/or as a portion of a university course.  Stop by this session to learn some basics about assessment and take your skills to a new level!

Dr. Foster’s breakout session is Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in Session C, 8:45 a.m.-9:45 a.m. Co-presenter is Mrs. Amie Bloomfield, Customer Care and Outreach Manager, NOCTI, Big Rapids, MI.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager

For more information, please go to www.nocti.org

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 Fort Worth, TX in June. Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Sandra Pritz, Senior Consultant, NOCTI.

Strategies to improve instruction are embedded in your students’ data if you know how to mine for them.  CTEDDI (Career Technical Educators using Data-Driven Instruction) is a researched professional development mining tool, and the model can be implemented in various ways to meet needs at the state or local level.

Educators say they welcome evaluations of their practice and programs, but need more support in interpreting and using student assessment data to make their instruction more effective and help their students achieve at higher levels and meet their learning objectives. Increasingly, evaluations of schools, programs, and teachers are being tied to student achievement.

To help schools, teachers, and students excel, NRCCTE researchers at NOCTI spent three years researching, developing, and pilot testing CTEDDI—a professional development model that empowers CTE administrators and educators to use student assessment data to enrich classroom practice, capture student interest, effectively target individual and group learning needs, and meet student learning objectives (SLOs).

Unlike out-of-the-box, one-shot professional development, with CTEDDI:

• Training is highly interactive and customized.
• Professional development is a year-long process rather than a one-time event, with participants receiving ongoing support and mentoring.
• Educators use their own students’ data to create classroom- and student-level instructional improvement plans.
• Educators participate in an online collaborative community of practice with CTEDDI participants across the country.
• Educators are assisted in making systematic and strategic instructional decisions that can result in higher student scores and teacher performance evaluations.

CTEDDI technical assistance is available at the secondary and postsecondary level for states, districts, and/or schools and can be customized to meet specific needs. Join educators in California, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Chicago who are currently participating in CTEDDI.                                   

Come and find out how the process model can be replicated using the action planning process as long as you have mined your data. At the session, small groups will mine ideas from sample technical skills data.

For more information, go to www.nocti.org

Dr. Pritz’s breakout session is Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in Session C, 8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. and is described more fully on page 19 in the Institute program booklet.

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 Fort Worth, TX in June. Today’s guest blogger is Dr. John C. Foster, CEO, NOCTI and NOCTI Business Solutions.

Education is at a crossroad in many ways, and there are so many external influences on public education that it can make one’s head spin. The current focus on Career and College Readiness brings with it its own set of external influences which, in addition to the indirect influences on education in general, impact the Career Technical Education (CTE) community directly and more specifically.

Just a few examples of these impacts are big picture issues like teacher evaluations based on student outcome data, return on investment in technical training based on workplace success, researching, categorizing and assessing the value of industry certification systems and, of course, Perkins IV reauthorization. In relation to assessment in the CTE community, we have other layers of impacts including implementation of Programs of Study (POS), the use of data for instructional improvement, articulation agreement foundations, dual credit, and inconsistency of rigor of CTE programs in similar technical areas.

In our session we will briefly explore some of these issues with a focus purposely on solutions that exist for several of them. Specifically, we will focus on collaboration with the National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS), a program of the USNY Regents Research Fund; NCCRS has conducted an academic evaluation showing competence on technical assessments delivered by NOCTI. Over 1500 colleges and universities may consider awarding college credit for NOCTI assessments based on NCCRS credit recommendations.

The presentation will explore the first year of implementation of this innovative approach, what we learned, and how we improved our process and product for the second year. This whole process underscores the rigor of CTE programs and highlights the commitment of non-profits like NOCTI and NCCRS to see that CTE programs have the data they need to prove their success. If time permits we will also discuss the concept of how badges fit into the equation. Please join us for an informative and innovative session!

For more information go to www.nocti.org and www.nationalccrs.org

Dr. Foster’s breakout session (identified as a vendor session) is Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in Session D, 11:15 a.m. – 12:10 p.m. and described on page 25 in the Institute program booklet. Co-presenter is Ms. Tina Grant, Director, National College Credit Recommendation Service, Albany, NY.

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 Fort Worth, TX in June. Today’s guest blogger is Randy Swann, Education Administrator, Alabama State Department of Education.

The Alabama State Department of Education, Office of Career and Technical Education/Workforce Development partnered with business and industry to develop a certification process that establishes and maintains a quality-oriented accountability system for the improvement and enhancement of Career Technical Education (CTE). All CTE programs must participate in an annual local evaluation for business/industry certification (BIC). BIC promotes program improvement that enhances the preparedness of Alabama’s students for society and tomorrow’s workforce.

Alabama requires all CTE programs to certify to industry standards, either through the state’s BIC process or through a national certification process. The BIC process is certified to standards as developed by the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) and these standards are referred to as ISO 9001:2000 certification.

The ISO 9001:2000 certification is process-based and recognizes organizations that link business objectives with operating effectiveness. ISO indicates that CTE demonstrates effective implementation of BIC documentation and records management; has the commitment of top management to local career and technical programs; has established clear policies; conducts good planning and implementation; performs good resource management; and has efficient process control, measurement, and analysis. The ISO certification ensures that the BIC process is quality-oriented, consistently administered, and focused on customer satisfaction. The purpose of BIC is to ensure that CTE programs meet industry standards so that students will be equipped for postsecondary education, apprenticeship, employment, and life.

For more information, please go to Alabama’s Department of Education Web site.

Randy’s breakout session is Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in Session E, 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager