Learner Engagement « Advance CTE Blog

Amplifying Learner Voice: How WisCORE Champions Equity Through Learner-Led Conversations

Wednesday, March 6th, 2024

Five states, including Wisconsin, took part in the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort hosted by Advance CTE and ACTE. Inspired by CTE Without Limits: a Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education, they’re using the With Learners, Not for Learners toolkit to involve learners in the design, delivery, and implementation of CTE programs and policies. This post focuses on Wisconsin’s “WisCORE” conference, where learners lead conversations and drive change in diversity, equity, and inclusion across the state’s technical colleges. For this post, Haley Wing, senior policy associate with Advance CTE, interviewed Colleen Larsen, education director for student success at Wisconsin Technical College System, a member of the Wisconsin state team for the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort and the coordinator for the state-wide WisCORE Conference planning and execution committee.

WisCORE: Where Learner Voices Spark Change in Race and Ethnicity Conversations

In October 2023, the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) convened learners, staff, and faculty from across the System for the Wisconsin Technical College System Conference on Race and Ethnicity (WisCORE), a transformative conference dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the system’s colleges.

The WisCORE conference facilitates collaboration among WTCS colleges, enabling shared effective DEI strategies and building system-wide capacity for creating more inclusive campuses. By emphasizing the voices and experiences of learners, employees, and community members, the conference ensures that DEI efforts are informed by the perspectives of those most impacted, leading to more equitable and sustainable practices.

The WisCORE event and the Wisconsin state team’s work in the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort align seamlessly with the principles of CTE Without Limits, ensuring that every learner feels welcomed, supported, and empowered to succeed within the career preparation ecosystem. The conference and its outcomes elevate learners’ voices, prioritizing inclusion and equity, while establishing accountability and continuous improvement processes.

Student Caucus from WiSCORE

LEARNER TESTIMONIAL

“WisCORE 2023 was my first experience, and it was a pleasant experience. Being able to attend and be involved meant a lot for me as a student. I got to hear other students share their personal stories and experiences within the college setting, as well as within their community. It was reassuring to hear students share similar thoughts and possible solutions on how colleges can improve on how they can create a welcoming space of diversity, equity, inclusion, self-advocacy, and cultural competency to better serve their student population. It’s nice to know that I was not the only student who wanted to advocate in those DEI areas and that the attendees, both staff and student, have a similar inspiration, which is to hear student voices for a sense of direction on how colleges can improve and better serve their students.”

Building Bridges, Brick by Brick: The Collaborative Journey to WisCORE

The idea for the WisCORE conference was borne out of multiple leaders and learners in the Wisconsin Technical College system attending The National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE). Attendees of this conference reported rave reviews, and the requests for additional participants from each technical college quickly increased. During the NCORE 2018 conference in Portland, Colleen attended with others from her state and requested a Wisconsin-dedicated room for their state team. During their debriefing and unpacking the learning from the conference, she asked, “What would you like to do to bring this learning back to our state?”

From that conference room, the team, which included learners, staff and faculty, insisted that Wisconsin needed a dedicated convening to center belonging, connections and solutions to challenges learners frequently face. Leveraging a grant from Jobs For the Future centered on equity, the planning committee, which included learners, created the first WisCORE conference. Leveraging the demand from learners and support from faculty members, the collective advocacy across the state resulted in all 16 technical college presidents agreeing to submit $1,000 from each college budget to support the development and execution of the WisCORE conference. After the second conference, more faculty and learners took an interest in the event and requested that the conference occur annually, which the presidents agreed to support. This sustainable funding ensures the event is possible each year.

Grit and Grace: Lessons from WisCORE’s Road to Success

Planning and successfully executing an event like WisCORE comes with several benefits: learners are in the driver’s seat to lead meaningful change; faculty are made aware of learners’ experiences and opportunities to improve their supports in programs; and learner feedback and input are actualized in changes to policies, practices and more. Understanding these benefits is helpful when navigating the challenges and barriers that may come up when replicating a similar event. Colleen shared the following tips to support this work in Wisconsin and beyond:

Support and develop a culture that values learners as partners: Colleen, other members of her team and learners across the technical college system have clearly articulated the need to center learners’ feedback and input on their educational experiences. Learners came up with the idea for WisCORE and System and college staff coordinated resources to support their vision. Learners facilitate the conference, lead break-out sessions, facilitate caucuses and serve as keynote speakers. Learners have been at the table at every stage of development for the WisCORE conference. The System created a video at the event highlighting the importance of learner voice.
- This environment fosters greater learner engagement and learners are empowered to consult and offer feedback to leaders within the education system. Aligning everyone within your state agency, institution, or organization on the definition, meaning, and value of authentic learner engagement is a great way to ensure everyone is working towards the same goal and feels empowered to take action. Additional resources and recommendations are also in the With Learners, Not for Learners toolkit for beginning meaningful learner engagement work.

Structure opportunities that foster equitable learner engagement: The WisCORE conference is designed with each college in the System invited to attend with a team. The team is required to be at least 50% learner-led. Learners are crucial to the makeup of college teams to ensure they are seen as leaders and have space to facilitate conversations and solutions that impact learners’ experiences most. To create enough space for all learners attending to share their experiences during the conference, each team is limited to 10 members (160 total conference attendees). While the interest is high, the WisCORE Planning Committee considers the space constraints; each year, the WisCORE conference is hosted at a different technical college campus. Given the space available at the colleges, 160 participants for the conference is the max.
- Another equity component of the WisCORE conference and similar learner engagements is the availability and accessibility of attending an in-person conference. If a learner cannot attend the conference in person, the team has previously leveraged hybrid options. This sufficed for the time, however, Colleen mentioned the difficulty of ensuring learners feel included and part of the team when joining sessions virtually. For the 2023 WisCORE conference, the team leveraged Encore Sessions: virtual sessions held after the conference that allows others to engage across the System. In these Encore Sessions, learners present and facilitate topics included in the in-person conference. This adaptability allows for equitable engagement if a learner cannot attend the conference in person.

Focus your efforts to ensure you’re meeting learners’ needs: Events like WisCORE, and similar learner engagement opportunities, emerge from the ground up to inform the collective of opportunities for improvement. When engaging in grassroots work, the swath of information and perspectives can make it challenging to focus efforts. When encountering this challenge with the WisCORE Planning Committee, Colleen elevates choosing a specific engagement theme. For example, for the WisCORE conference, each year, the Planning Committee determines a theme with the inclusion of learner feedback and input. Simply asking learners what they care about and what they would like to discuss when it comes to their CTE experiences is a great way to begin developing a theme and ensuring learners’ needs are met. During the planning process for WisCORE, Colleen mentioned mental health came up as an important theme, as did the representation of indigenous learners and learners with disabilities. This input from learners informed the design of the conference sessions and speakers.
- When learners design programs and strategies alongside us, we create initiatives that genuinely resonate with their needs and break down barriers to their success. Leaders interested in meaningfully engaging learners can begin with a group of learners and ask them what they want to see, implement, develop, and more. If a group of learners is not easily accessible, meeting learners where they are and simply listening to their ideas and input can be a great place to start. While listening to learners, determine where to leverage your resources, capital and more to actualize learners’ ideas for increasing inclusion and closing gaps in access and success metrics.

LEARNER TESTIMONIAL

“I learned the value of advocating for yourself and for others and that there are many out there who are likely facing the issue like us. And how important it is for each individual to be responsible and respectful.”

Beyond Conversation, Beyond Collaboration: WisCORE’s Tangible Impact

As a result of the WisCORE conference, learners and faculty members across the state report the impact of the conference:

Learners across the state are more deeply and meaningfully engaged: The Wisconsin team has seen an increase in learners’ engagement on college campuses. This includes learners serving on committees and interacting with leaders within their college. Due to the high-impact nature of the WisCORE conference, direct action items are addressed and implemented, such as creating dedicated seats for learners on each of the technical college’s president executive committees or boards. Learners on these committees meet with their college’s president’s committee or board to discuss important issues affecting learners and provide input on solutions. Colleges in the state have also designated learner spaces on DEI committees.

Learners are actively shaping conversations about their educational experiences: During the inaugural WisCORE conference, the staff helping to plan the event held an assumption that learners would not be able to ‘handle’ seeing data across the state technical college system. Learners on the planning committee advocated, that in the first year, the conference engaged learners at the conference in a data dive for their college campus. This activity allowed learners to share their feedback and input on root-cause analysis. After this model, some colleges returned this practice to campus and included learners in data reviews. The Wisconsin state team has also seen learners included in regional Perkins needs assessments. Learners are great partners for discussing the root-cause analysis of various data points.

Learners drive diversity, equity, and inclusion on college campuses: The WisCORE conference empowers learners to be agents of change in their colleges’ DEI efforts. Through student panels, breakouts and keynote speeches, learners dive deep into DEI and brainstorm solutions. The highlight is “team time” where learners collaborate with their colleagues to create concrete action plans with at least three actionable steps to advance DEI on campus. This event challenges the traditional top-down approach, prioritizing learner voices and fostering meaningful collaborations for lasting impact.

Looking Ahead: Amplifying Learner Voices Beyond the Conference Walls

As the Wisconsin team looks forward, they continue to leverage learner voice to strengthen CTE. In addition to their work with the WisCORE conference, the team continues to share and elevate promising practices and approaches related to their learner engagement work in the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE technical assistance cohort. With all learner engagement work across secondary and postsecondary systems, the team continues to center learners and their experiences, support learners as they engage to improve their educational experiences and create sustainable structures to help shift mindsets and practices as it relates to learner engagement work.

For additional information about leveraging learner voice, please visit the following pages on the Advance CTE website:

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE

By Layla Alagic in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Access and Equity, CTE Vision, CTE Without Limits, inclusivity, Learner Engagement, learner voice, wisconsin

Research Round-up: Impact of Career-Connected Learning on Learner Engagement and Hope

Monday, October 30th, 2023

Advance CTE’s “Research Round-Up” blog series features summaries of relevant research reports and studies to elevate evidence-backed Career Technical Educational (CTE) policies and practices and topics related to college and career readiness. This month’s blog highlights the impact of career-connected learning on learner engagement and hope. These findings align with Advance CTE’s vision for the future of CTE where each learner skillfully navigates their own career journey.

The New Hampshire Learning Initiative (NHLI) partnered with Gallup to survey a group of New Hampshire learners to better understand the impact of Career Connected Learning (CCL). Specifically, this study sought to measure the interactions between CCL participation, school engagement and hope among middle school and high school learners. CCL is an education strategy aiming to boost learners’ knowledge of potential career options and the skills needed for those careers. CCL bridges CTE and core academic classroom experiences to expand career exploration and work-based learning opportunities.

This sample included 9,600 learners, across grades 5-12 from 28 schools and 13 districts throughout the state of New Hampshire.

In this study, participating in CCL opportunities, as explained in the chart below, was measured by engagement and hope.

Engagement indicates the degree to which learners are involved in and are enthusiastic about school
Hope refers to the ideas and energy learners have for the future

Findings from the Gallup-NHLI learner poll demonstrate strong relationships between learners’ career-connected learning participation and their hope and engagement. These encouraging results indicate that CCL opportunities may help move the needle in improving learner outcomes.

Learners in fifth and sixth grades (37%) are the most likely to be engaged out of all learners in grades 5-12. Starting career exploration early could be more impactful when paired with high levels of engagement.
The vast majority of learners (88%) report participating in at least one career-connected learning opportunity.
Career-connected learning opportunities that match learners’ interests are more likely to inform their plans.
Those who agree they have a mentor who supports their development are more likely to be hopeful about the future than their peers who do not have such a mentor (40% vs. 25%).
Those who agree they have a mentor who supports their development are more likely to be engaged than their peers who do not have such a mentor (37% vs. 16%).
This study found a strong relationship between engagement levels and whether a learner says “I know I will graduate from high school”. This connection is the most pronounced among learners who report receiving average or poor grades. For example, among engaged middle schoolers with average or poor grades, 86% of students believe they will graduate from high school, compared to 67% of not-engaged learners.

What type of Career Connected Learning activities were observed in this study?
CCL learning opportunities occur in various ways within schools or even in the community. Common types of CCL include learning about a job or career in their core academic courses, participating in a career fair or attending a job talk or panel. The graph below demonstrates the frequency of learner participation in various types of CCL activities.

About one in three high school students (35%) — and one in four middle school students (26%) — say CCL opportunities at their school have informed what they plan to do after high school.

These results are encouraging and provide educators and leaders with the data they need to best foster learner success — an important step in closing the gap between the skills learners have and the jobs employers need to fill. Partnerships between industry and school districts to increase the frequency of CCL could increase knowledge of local and regional opportunities and peak learner interest. For state and local leaders seeking to leverage the power of CCL in CTE programs, consider the following:

- Conduct climate surveys to understand the current state and availability of CCL-type activities.
- Investigate the process for creating partnerships with local and regional industry leaders to ensure that CCL opportunities are aligned with career pathways.
- Assess the current strategies for communicating the CCL that are available to learners and their families.

Creating opportunities for learners to engage in CCL during the school day in their core courses mitigates barriers presented by transportation, geography or conflicting school schedules.

Please visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center for resources to support connecting the learner experiences in the classroom to careers.

With Learners, Not for Learners: A Toolkit for Elevating Learner Voice in CTE: This toolkit provides state and local CTE leaders with actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard for the improvement of CTE policies and practices.
ECMC’s Question the Quo Report: This national report highlights Gen Z’s desire for increases in the information and opportunities to explore career options.

Amy Hodge, Membership and Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Research
Tags: Gallup, graduation, Learner Engagement, Middle grades, New Hampshire, Research Review

States Make Progress in Strengthening Meaningful Learner Engagement in CTE

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

Career Technical Education (CTE) programs must be designed with learners, not simply for learners, to be responsive to their diverse needs at every stage of the CTE continuum. Being responsive to diverse learner needs can occur only if learners have direct and ongoing input into the design and delivery of CTE programs and experiences. This blog provides an overview of the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE Technical Assistance cohort; highlights the states in the cohort that are meaningfully engaging CTE learners to inform CTE programs and policies; and shares links to resources to support states in engaging CTE learners.

Over the past seven months, Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) provided training, resources and coaching to help states identify opportunities to engage learners more meaningfully in the design and delivery of CTE programs and experiences. The cohort of states (Colorado, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon and Wisconsin), engaged in six 90-minute virtual sessions and individual coaching sessions to work through the Learner Voice Toolkit to develop and execute on strategies for leveraging learner voice in CTE policies and programs.

Over the course of the technical assistance sessions and coaching calls, each state team developed a comprehensive Action Plan to leverage meaningful learner engagement in the development of CTE programs and policies. The Action Plans are guiding the states’ actions over the next year to improve and systematize their learner engagement.

Action Plan Development

The development of the Action Plan took place in stages. States first completed an organizational capacity assessment to understand the existing structures, policies, relationships and resources that can support the expansion of learner engagement practices.

States then identified high-level goals in which they envisioned what meaningful learner engagement would look like in their states to support CTE program improvement, CTE policy development, learner supports, Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) process improvement with learner engagement and more. After identifying the goals, states mapped the actions that needed to be taken in order to achieve their goals.

Through the development of each state’s Action Plan, states included learners’ feedback and input. States engaged learners in focus groups, interviews, surveys, advisory board meetings and more to capture their input and reflect their thoughts in the Action Plans. States in the cohort were supported by Advance CTE with a pool of funds to compensate learners for their time and expertise engaging with state agencies. Over the course of the Action Plan development phase, states in the cohort engaged more than 400 learners.

Early Areas of Success

Prioritizing learner engagement in the development of Action Plans is not a common practice, however, states in the technical assistance cohort are already seeing the value of more meaningfully engaging learners in CTE program development and improvement.

Wisconsin learned from learners in their state the type of communication they prefer for engagements, the compensation rate they need to engage in events and meetings, the areas of CTE that student voices are most needed and the roles they are most interested in engaging in.

New Hampshire leveraged the input from learners from their statewide survey to develop a toolkit for regional and local practitioners to improve learner engagement at their CTE centers.

Colorado and Oregon engaged learners in a mix of focus groups and surveys to learn what they enjoy about CTE, challenges they experience in CTE programs and ways their state agency can do a better job of incorporating learner voice. Both states focused on engaging learners who were not typically included in focus groups or surveys to ensure they had a broad range of voices.

Delaware leveraged learners’ input and leadership and now has two simultaneous learner-led cohorts supporting the development of a new teacher preparation program of study and leadership training for Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) leaders. The learners leading the cohorts support the state agency and foster deeper engagement with their peers across their state to expand the reach of meaningful learner engagement.

Looking Ahead

As the official cohort technical assistance sessions come to a close, states in the cohort will continue to engage in coaching sessions with Advance CTE and ACTE to actualize the goals they identified in their Action Plans.

Additionally, Advance CTE will continue to hold space for state leaders to come together to discuss opportunities to improve meaningful learner engagement in CTE in Community of Practice sessions. These one-hour sessions will be held bimonthly from August 2023 through February 2024 and will be open to all states interested in learning more about meaningful learner engagement in CTE. To register to attend the Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen CTE Communities of Practice, please fill out the form on this page.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE

By Layla Alagic in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Colorado, Delaware, Equity, inclusivity, Learner Engagement, learner voice, New Hampshire, Oregon, program improvement, Stakeholder engagement, wisconsin

New Skills ready network Highlight Blog: Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen Career Pathways

Wednesday, July 26th, 2023

The New Skills ready network (NSrn) is part of JPMorgan Chase’s substantial portfolio in support of an inclusive economy and workforce. This five-year commitment is part of the New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity. With a dedication to building equitable career pathways, the New Skills ready network connects six sites — Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee — with local partners with the intentionality necessary to build a strong workforce ecosystem for all learners.

Denver, Colorado’s vision for the NSrn initiative, aims to “dramatically increase the number and diversity of students who complete selected high-quality career pathways that start in high school, continue into and through higher education, and lead to good jobs in Denver’s labor market.”

Over the past three years, the project team has achieved significant milestones in the development of high-quality, equitable career pathways including building a shared data framework, aligning work-based learning opportunities within high-quality career pathways and enhancing the learner experience when transitioning from secondary to postsecondary institutions. Under the leadership of the site lead, The Attainment Network, the project team leverages strategic cross-sector partnerships while centering equity and learner voice to enhance and improve their career pathways work.

A critical component of the Denver, Colorado, site work includes centering and leveraging the voices of learners to understand their experiences, barriers and opportunities and shaping career pathways aligned with their needs.In April 2023, The Attainment Network held their second annual Learner Voice Symposium which brought together an audience of educators, employers and policymakers to hear directly from Colorado learners what they seek in career-connected pathways and how they define success.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE, interviewed Rana Tarkenton, Chief Operating Officer, The Attainment Network to discuss the importance of leveraging learner voice in career pathways and how others might replicate their efforts to meaningfully engage learners in the design and implementation of career pathways.

Overview of the Learner Voice Symposium Event

The purpose of the Learner Voice Symposium is to elevate highlights from learners’ diverse perspectives and backgrounds and provide actionable insights to improve and expand pathways for all learners. The Symposium serves as a reminder to partners of the reason why they engage in this work and elevates the voices of learners who are not always invited to the table when developing and implementing career pathways. Learners, who are not simply the receivers of the work of career pathways, but rather the experts in their experiences, provide critical feedback to leaders.

The Symposium fills a gap in the career preparation ecosystem in Colorado; leaders developing career-connected pathways are continuously striving to improve the system and learners are disconnected from the leaders who need to hear their voices most. The Attainment Network identified this gap and provides career pathway partners the space to listen to and reflect learner voices in their work in the form of The Symposium.

The Symposium held virtually on Zoom, included a keynote speaker who is a practitioner that engages with learners frequently and specializes in community engagement, and breakout sessions that are co-led by learners who are compensated for their time and expertise. The Symposium is attended by a wide audience including practitioners in secondary and postsecondary education, college and career advisors, state agency providers, policymakers and employer partners.

Participants have the opportunity to attend breakout sessions of their choosing covering topics like authentic youth engagement in career pathways, immigrant and undocumented learner experiences, non-traditional learners and pathways and more. Presenting organizations that support the sessions include Ednium, The San Luis Valley Boys & Girls Clubs, Emily Griffith Technical College, MSU Denver and more.

All of the information shared during The Learner Voice Symposium is centered on elevating the experiences of learners and incorporating their voices in the development of career-connected pathways. At the close of The Symposium, The Attainment Network announced their Learner Voice Grants that organizations and institutions can apply for to support and enhance their meaningful learner engagement efforts.

Impact of The Learner Voice Symposium on the New Skills ready network

The learner engagement in The Learner Voice Symposium supports the Denver, Colorado, New Skills ready network team in their communications strategies as they develop materials and messaging to better connect learners and families to career-connected pathway opportunities. Additionally, Denver Public Schools (DPS), a secondary partner for the New Skills ready network site, and the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) are two of the grantees for the Learner Voice Grant. DPS and CDHE leverage the grant funding to support their learner engagement work in the development of local and state-level career pathways.

With more than 175 attendees of The Symposium, The Attainment Network models meaningful learner engagement for its system-wide network. The Network, being a statewide intermediary, supports strengthening the career pathway ecosystem and strengthens relationships with system partnerships that impact learners.

Further, the Denver, Colorado, project team also elevates the voices and feedback from learners in state-level policy. The Attainment Network, alongside the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Community College System, led an effort to design, collect, and report on community input to inform the HB22-1215 Secondary, Postsecondary and Work-Based Learning Integration Task Force (Study of Expanding High School Programs).

Recommendations delivered to the Task Force focus on equitable access to and successful expansion of high school programs across all regions of Colorado with a focus on traditionally underserved populations and those who have not accessed relevant programming in their educational experience. The discovery process of community feedback collection leveraged community organizations, educational organizations, and local partnerships.

Replicating Meaningful Learner Engagement

Leveraging learners’ input and feedback in the development of career pathways, CTE programs and policies is a valuable component of program improvement. Leaders who are interested in replicating The Learner Voice Symposium should prioritize including learners whose voices are historically underrepresented, leveraging partners who can support recruiting learners to bring them to the table and co-creating the event with partners and learners to ensure the content fills the needs for the ecosystem.

The Attainment Network engages in the planning and execution of The Symposium with an equity lens to ensure a diverse representation of learners, speakers and attendees. The Network also backward plans by prioritizing the outcomes they want the event to achieve from the start of the planning process to ensure there are sessions with meaningful outcomes and takeaways for attendees.

The planning and execution of an event of this size includes a lot of logistics and leaders should consider adequate staffing, preparation that helps to keep audiences engaged and ensuring the videos and notes from the event are accessible once the event is over. The addition of a visual scribe enhances the experience for attendees throughout the session, as well as providing engaging artifacts to further share learnings after the event and marketing for future events.

Looking Ahead

As The Attainment Network enters year four of the New Skills ready network, the project team is working towards holding more learner and community engagement events to continue the work of leveraging learner voices, input and feedback in the design and delivery of career pathways. The Network team is currently working on analyzing themes from The Learner Voice Symposium to inform the design of their Colorado Pathways Conference on September 19 – 20. The two-day conference will focus on pathways-focused education-to-workforce systems across the state and country.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

By Jodi Langellotti in CTE Without Limits
Tags: Access and Equity, career pathways, Colorado, Colorado Community College System, community colleges, Learner Engagement, learner voice, New Skills ready network, pathways, The Attainment Network

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 2024 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
Tags: CTE Month, Learner Engagement, Social Media, Stakeholder engagement

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:

A New York school district is adopting an asset-based approach to family engagement by mitigating the challenges faced by families that hinder their engagement with the school system. The Sherburne-Earlville Central School District implemented initiatives aimed at collectively responding to the economic deprivation experienced by families the district served. The superintendent collected information from parents and families to understand their challenges and provided financial resources to ease their financial burdens. The district built trusting relationships with families and leveraged their engagement to inform the development of programs available to learners. As states remedy the barriers to meaningful engagement with families, leveraging similar practices to ensure families of all backgrounds have the access and opportunities to engage with leadership to elevate their voices, experiences and expertise of supporting their learners can be successful.
School districts in Indiana and Washington are establishing family engagement as a system-level priority by integrating family engagement as commitments in their equity agendas. Indianapolis Public Schools and Highline Public Schools have equity policies that guide the strategic direction for the districts’ efforts to reduce and dismantle inequities. The policies signal a district-wide commitment to equity, including recognizing the value and importance of family engagement to learner success. Both districts leverage family advisory groups and other engagement series that provide meaningful feedback to district leadership. As state leaders prioritize family engagement, embedding the priority in policy will ensure the practices continue regardless of shifts in personnel. States can ensure family engagement remains a priority throughout systems and achieve engagement goals with families with clear and actionable priorities that signal to the community their commitment to elevating family inclusion.
The Denver, Colorado, New Skills ready network site lead organization, The Attainment Network, is building capacity for family engagement. The intermediary organization supports Colorado’s career pathway ecosystem in meaningful community and family engagement by developing comprehensive learner and family engagement strategies including a community of practice to help identify barriers to success and inform decisions around policies and programs. With strategic collaboration, states can leverage their partners to embed family engagement in every stage of career pathway development to ensure equity and provide meaningful and ongoing mechanisms to elevate family, learner and community input.

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
Tags: career pathways, Colorado, Indiana, Learner Engagement, learner voice, New Skills ready network, New York, Washington State

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

For postsecondary CTE concentrators, the report finds that 40 states are placing 70 percent or more of secondary learners into postsecondary training and education, military or employment after high school graduation. Only three states, however, are placing 70 percent or more of all high school graduates into either a two-year or four-year postsecondary training or education program. The report recommends expanding post-school data points as well as counting military service and employment as post-school outcomes for learners.
Kansas, in addition to assessing advanced social-emotional learning (SEL) skills that serve as high-demand employability skills, creates an annual report that provides high schools with information on the average percentage of students that complete career interest surveys; write postsecondary goals and post-secondary plan; and complete portfolio tracking for internship records, dual course credit; certifications and applications to postsecondary education.

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

47 states were found to be connecting more than 90 percent of their youth population aged 16 to 19 to education, training programs, or employment. However, only five states reported that more than 90% of their young adults aged 20 to 24 are connected to education, training programs, or employment. The report recommended that longitudinal data systems be designed to determine whether and when young adults become disconnected.
The 16+ DataHub, managed by Scotland’s Careers Services, integrates data from a range of sources including education, workforce, and health and human services. Once identified, Careers Services deploys a career counselor to reconnect them to education, training, and employment opportunities.

Recommendation 3: Invest in PCAP

While 30 states offer high-quality career readiness policies, referred to as personalized career and academic plans (PCAP), the report highlights the need to improve alignment through cross-sector teams. Specifically, the report recommends leveraging federal and state funds to support the adoption and quality implementation of PCAPs or other career planning processes by schools, youth-serving organizations and higher education institutions. Additionally, cross-sector teams should focus on aligning PCAP with the state’s education, workforce development, wellness, and career readiness policies, resources and initiatives.
The Delaware Pathways initiative is a cross-sector-created team of diverse stakeholders who established a common vision and language for linking their PCAP (referred to as Student Success Planning) with CTE, SEL, and work-based learning initiatives in a manner that seeks to increase access for all learners. Advance CTE featured Delaware Pathways in a recent brief on braiding funding in career pathways design.

Recommendation 4: Increase Access to Work-based Learning Opportunities

Wage and employment opportunities increase when youth have career conversations and experiences. The report finds that 29 states identified work-based learning as an important element in their Perkins V plans. However, fewer than ten states name specific plans to enact or expand key work-based policy areas. The report recommends providing statewide infrastructure to support implementation; using state and federal funding incentives to encourage industry/business participation and communication systems that enable stakeholders to access and participate in work-based learning and leveraging intermediaries to provide capacity for state-wide work-based learning implementation infrastructure is an effective solution.
Iowa established a network of 15 regional intermediaries through its community college system which connects industry partners and the education system to offer relevant, work-based learning activities to learners. This work was highlighted in an Advance CTE webinar earlier this year.

Recommendation 5: Invest in Career Advising

High schools in just 28 states are meeting the American School Counseling Association’s recommended school counselor to student ratio of 250:1. To further this progress, the report calls for more investment in career readiness for elementary and middle school learners and emphasizes exposure can make a difference in aiding learners to select the best career pathway.
PBS Kids has created programs for learners ages three to six to give them the opportunity to see themselves reflected in various careers regardless of race, disability, or gender. Cajon Valley Union School District’s World of Work Initiative focuses on supporting children from lower income and racially diverse communities to build confidence through mentorship and career exposure.

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
Tags: Career Advisement, career readiness, Delaware, ICAP, Intermediaries, Iowa, kansas, Learner Engagement, student outcomes, work-based learning

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 admin in Resources
Tags: career pathways, Learner Engagement, learner voice, New Skills ready network, Ohio

Posts Tagged ‘Learner Engagement’