This blog series provides readers with insight on the valuable content that will be shared at the upcoming Career Clusters â„¢ Institute. Guest bloggers are among teachers, faculty, researchers and other experts that will present at the national gathering in Washington, DC in June.
As a Senior Consultant for NOCTI (formerly the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute), Dr. Sandra Pritz is involved with NOCTI’s partnership projects with the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education. She also coordinates the identification of integrated academics in assessments. Prior to NOCTI, Dr. Pritz taught college-level economics, mathematics, and English and spent almost 30 years at The Ohio State University Center on Education and Training for Employment, where she directed numerous projects based in CTE.
Debra Andrews is a Career and Technical Education specialist at the Maine Department of Education, working in the areas of comprehensive school review and technical standards and assessments implementation. Debra has worked as an educator in Maine for over twenty-five years, teaching third grade in Topsham; training teachers through the Professional Development Center at the University of Southern Maine; and administrating international education programs at Southern Maine Community College.
A key strategy in preparing college and career ready high school graduates is making effective use of the voluminous assessment data available to educators. NRCCTE researchers at NOCTI spent three years researching and pilot testing a professional development model that takes the confusion out of interpreting and using assessment data and helps teachers focus on the data connections between work and real-world student learning in order to create instructional improvement plans.
Career and Technical Educators Using Data-Driven Improvement (CTEDDI is the only evidence-based program designed to prepare both administrators and CTE teachers to use technical assessment data to continuously improve their programs. Educators analyze their own students’ data as they create both classroom- and student-level instructional improvement plans. This session will enable educators to learn about the program, but also to consider its features as they move forward with their plans to use data insightfully.
Delivered by knowledgeable in-state facilitators who also serve as ongoing coaches for teachers and administrators, CTEDDI also sustains valuable communities of practice through an online sharing center. At the Institute, Debra Andrews, CTEDDI administrative leader and facilitator for the state of Maine, will describe the characteristics of on-the-ground implementation at their sites. It is relevant that the following quotation is the tag line on e-mails she sends: “Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a solution.†(Maya Angelou)
To learn more about participating in CTEDDI, visit our website at www.nrccte.
Learn more about the characteristics of professional development that make data matter for both educators and students by attending Drs. Pritz and Andrew’s session at the Institute: Professional Development for Data-Driven Program Improvement.
Ramona Schescke, Member Services Manager