Posts Tagged ‘Learner Engagement’

5 Tips to Create Year-Long Impact Through CTE Month

Thursday, January 12th, 2023

February 1 marks the start of Career Technical Education (CTE) Month, a national celebration of the impact of CTE on learners, families, educators, our workforce and our communities.  It is a critical opportunity to conduct communications and outreach to introduce CTE to audiences who may not be aware of it or may have historical stigmas about its value. In doing so, you can cultivate more diverse interest in your programs and cultivate new CTE champions. 

We asked states what they already have planned, and these were some of their responses. 

Here are five tips to help you push the limits and maximize your CTE Month Activities to create impact not just in February but all year long: 

Tip 1: Use Your Activities to Tell A Story

Your CTE Month activities should be designed to advance your top legislative, strategic plan and programmatic goals. Consider who is invited to your events, who is featured as speakers and what materials should be shared. Combine your top quantitative outcomes with impactful stories from CTE stakeholders to proactively address stigmas or opposition to your goals and reach audiences needed to advance these goals. 

Tip 2: Choose Impact over Quantity

We know staff capacity is limited. Therefore, it is important that work invested in your CTE Month events and activities are not done just only of tradition, but also because they are impactful in advancing goals and reaching your target audience. 

Here are some questions to ask: What audiences do you need to reach during CTE Month? Do your current activities equitably reach those audiences? Do your activities reach new audiences? 

Tip 3: Be Intentional About Who You Spotlight 

Equity and access should be embedded in all CTE Month activities. Consider whether the visual representation, wording used, languages and formats allow your intended audiences to fully know about and participate in the activities. 

Additionally, consider whether all audiences are represented in your events, and if there are specific voices you need to add to your table. Perhaps you have an event for all employers, but are there employers with internship or placement programs supporting special populations that you should target to connect to current work? would it be more impactful to engage specifically with employers with existing programs to support learners transitioning out of foster care or learners with disabilities? 

Tip 4: Activate your CTE Champions

You don’t have to do all CTE Month activities yourself! Consider how your existing champions across policymakers, educators, employers, etc. can hold their own events, leverage existing events to highlight CTE, and/or make introductions to bring new CTE champions to the table. This is particularly important to closing representation gaps in your programs or garnering support for legislative or policy initiatives. 

Tip 5: Make CTE Month Year Round!

Make sure your events aren’t a one-time impact! If some of these tips are causing you to reevaluate your current activities, consider if there are adjustments or new events that can be held throughout the remainder of 2023 to make CTE a larger story that builds toward advancing your goals and initiatives. 

Use Advance CTE’s communication and advocacy resources to reach families, employers and policymakers: 

Stacy Whitehouse, Communications Manager 

 

By Jodi Langellotti in Uncategorized
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New Resource: Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways

Wednesday, October 5th, 2022

Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) calls on leaders to ensure that each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem. One avenue Advance CTE is utilizing to realize this vision is  the New Skills ready network, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. funded initiative which draws on cross-sector partnerships in six cities composed of state, regional and local partners. Building flexible and responsive career pathways systems at each level requires leaders to provide meaningful and ongoing mechanisms for elevating learner voice, and the voices of learners’ families and communities, to share their unique experiences and have direct and ongoing input into the design and delivery of career pathways.

As state leaders continue to assess and adjust program throughout the career pathways continuum, including CTE, steps should be taken too identify the full scope of institutional barriers in policies and programs, develop learner-centric programs and interventions and build trust with marginalized learners and communities to ensure their voices and perspectives are brought to the forefront of decisions. 

In support of this effort, Advance CTE’s new brief, Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways,  includes five strategies as well as actions, tools and resources leaders can leverage to effectively and meaningfully engage families in every stage of career pathways development. 

This resource details the challenges and opportunities associated with family engagement and provides promising approaches to comprehensive family engagement practices. Some examples of promising approaches and strategies that are meaningfully engaging families include:

Read about more promising examples and five implementation strategies in Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways  For more resources on developing high-quality career pathways, please visit the New Skills ready network series page in the Learning that Works Resource Center .

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in Publications
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Top Recommendations from Coalition for Career Development Center’s Inaugural Report to Improve State Career Readiness

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

In May, the Coalition for Career Development Center released the first annual The Condition of Career Readiness in the United States. The 129-page report evaluates key states’ career readiness policies, investments and outcomes across all 50 states, including personalized career and academic plans (PCAP), funding, curriculums, accountability, and Career Technical Education (CTE) program outcomes. Accompanying the report is an interactive national map that links available PCAP resources, work-based learning (WBL) toolkits, Perkins V plans, social-emotional learning (SEL) toolkits and ESSA plans for each state to allow state leaders to assess and enhance their career readiness systems 

The report finds that  “[to] become a Career Ready Nation we all have work to do. And, cost-effective solutions and strategies used by many states or regions within states offer a way forward.” As a 50-state landscape of key components of career readiness, this report gives state Career Technical Education (CTE) leaders valuable findings and guidance to better align and interconnect career readiness systems that are responsive to the needs of each learner across their entire career journey. 

Here are several recommendations and state highlights that state CTE leaders can consider to make that alignment possible;

Recommendation 1: Expand Post-School Outcome Data 

Recommendation 2: Identify Engagement Strategies for Learners Ages 16 to 19

Recommendation 3: Invest in PCAP

Recommendation 4: Increase Access to Work-based Learning Opportunities

Recommendation 5: Invest in Career Advising

The extensive report includes sources cited from several publications in Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center (specific references can be found starting on page 119.) 

Brice Thomas, Policy Associate 

 

By Stacy Whitehouse in Resources
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New Skills ready network Site Highlight Blog: Columbus, Ohio Learner and Family Engagement

Thursday, December 9th, 2021

In 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. launched the New Skills ready network across six U.S. sites to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways with a focus on collaboration and equity. As a national partner in the New Skills ready network, Advance CTE strives to elevate the role of state capacity and resources in advancing project priorities and gain a unique perspective on promising practices to strengthen state-local partnerships across the country.

This blog series highlights innovative tools and initiatives produced across the six sites that advance the initiative’s four key priorities and serve as a guide for state leaders in their work to create cohesive, flexible and responsive career pathways.

Policy Associate Dan Hinderliter interviewed Donna Marbury, Director of Client Services for Warhol and WALL ST, a full-service marketing firm that serves as a consultant for the Columbus New Skills ready network site and has partnered on multiple initiatives with Columbus City Schools. This post will highlight the site’s work in elevating learner voice to market career pathways to families. 

Background 

Career pathways in Columbus City Schools provide the opportunity for high school learners to access high quality career technical education, and are open to all juniors and seniors. Dozens of courses are offered through eleven pathway programs split between two locations, Columbus Downtown High School and Fort Hayes Career Center. Through the New Skills ready network, the Columbus project team is prioritizing improving rigor and quality specifically in the areas of health sciences and information technology. Postsecondary partners Columbus State Community College and The Ohio State University are also reviewing quality pathways in this area to ensure seamless transition and alignment for learners in and between educational institutions.

Purpose and Components 

One of Columbus’ project focuses is creating messaging and materials to more effectively communicate the opportunities and benefits of career pathways to learners and families. The strategy focused on direct outreach to students and families through polling, focus groups and co-design sessions. Marbury emphasized that this strategy is rooted in creating communications “not for, but with the end user” to ensure materials meet both learners’ and families’ needs in how they digest and receive information.

This engagement began with focus groups of families and learners in the eighth and tenth grades, both those who are interested in and not interested in participating in career pathways in Columbus City Schools. Focus groups were also held with administrators, counselors and internship coordinators who were identified as key “translators” between student needs and goals and family perceptions and expectations for their students

Marbury acknowledged that it was difficult to reach families due to work schedules, communication needs, and the challenges of connecting virtually, and as a result, a post-focus group survey was targeted specifically to parents to determine communication preferences to better align future engagement. 

Active Listening through Learner Feedback Loops 

Columbus’ strategy integrates learner input beyond one-time focus groups, and Marbury emphasized that it is clear through their work so far that learners want to be involved in the entire process. Design workshops were held to allow a sub-set of learners involved in the focus groups to provide feedback on initial drafts of graphics and messaging. Future quarterly check-ins will engage this group in testing subsequent versions of the messaging and materials. 

Learner feedback on the updated materials has helped to reach diverse groups of students and achieve authenticity through messaging that is easily understood and able to be easily acted upon; photography that aligns with East African and Latinx representation in Columbus communities, and in formats such as memes and videos that match popular means for learners to access information.

Learners want to be involved in these projects. If they are interested in a career pathway, they want to feel empowered to talk about it, and we need to make it easy for them to do so.” – Donna Marbury, Director of Client Services, Warhol and WALL St. 

The updated communication tools are one piece of a larger plan to design and communicate career pathways more clearly to families and learners so that each learner’s academic plans are aligned to their career goals starting as early as middle school. 

Lessons Learned 

Marbury elevated that the choice to participate in a career pathway in Columbus can be an emotional decision because it often requires the learner to leave their home school environment to attend one of Columbus’ career technical high schools. The communications to students and families must address this and highlight the benefits to students now and in the future. She also shared that the opportunity for hands-on learning experiences and the involvement of pathway alumni, particularly those from historically underrepresented populations, strongly resonated with learners. Finally, she emphasized the importance of involving learners and families at not just the beginning but across the entire project cycle of materials development to ensure the end product reflects the needs of the targeted audience. 

For more information about initiatives being pursued by Columbus and the five other sites that are part of the New Skills ready network, view Advance CTE’s Year One snapshots. Additionally, Advance CTE’s recently released learner voice toolkit provides actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard for the improvement of CTE policies and practices

Stacy Whitehouse, Senior Associate Communications and State Engagement 

By Brittany Cannady in Resources
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