Creating Career Relevance for Core Courses

Cited from 10/1/2012 E-Newsletter of NCDA (www.ncda.org):

CAREER GUIDANCE - CREATING CAREER RELEVANCE FOR CORE COURSES

BY SHANTELE RAPER

As standardized testing has taken the front line in our schools, we are finding enrichment opportunities, vocational training, and career guidance has periodically been moved into an area of formidable lesser priority. Administrators and core teachers are compassionate to our calling to provide career guidance, but continue to closely guard their instructional time in math and literacy schedules. As career counselors strive to build their programs, it is difficult to create “buy in” from an already overwhelmed school staff. It seems everyone has their own priority.

Business and industry continue to plea with the education system to ensure graduates are career ready. Soft skills, such as simple punctuality to in-depth problem solving crest their wish lists of employability skills. Our goal as educators is to provide experiences and opportunities which ultimately produce skills and abilities that allow our students to become viable citizens.

As career professionals we can help teachers provide an answer for the age-old question students seem to ask, “Why do we have to know this?” As we learn more about Generation Z, we are finding they are looking for “the why” before they invest their effort. This group is quicker to catch on, but just as quick to turn away if our message is not clear and relevant to their current circumstances in life.

What Can Career Counselors in Schools Do?

1. Collaborate with colleagues. One of the greatest facets to building strong support for career readiness skills is finding time in master schedules for grade level team meetings. Teachers and counselors should be encouraged to arrive prepared to share ideas as to how they can work together while accepting that no certain program of study is more important than the other.

1. Promote connections between workplace skills and core curriculum. Provide copies of all course standards to look for areas of commonalities. The expression, “Kill two birds with one stone” can easily be applied in this instance. Share core concepts with colleagues and discuss opportunities to create activities or share teaching methods. For example, measurement is a foundation of math, in addition, measurement can be an integral concept in food science, construction, automotive and technology.

1. Create a true integration project. A comprehensive integration project or activity is an excellent way to create student awareness of the importance of all subject areas. For example, students could participate in a service-learning project, such as a community landscape project. In collaboration with counselors, teachers should create mini-projects within their classrooms that correlate with the bigger project. For example, in language arts, students could write a news release about the project for the local newspaper. In math, students could create a detailed budget or geometric outline of the project. And in science or agriculture class, students could determine the best plant type for the project. A rubric or grading scale, which clearly outlines the expectations of each teacher, will help students keep track of the requirements. The project should culminate with a career research component.

1. Build career-related projects using standardized test items. Explore released questions from standardized tests to build project ideas. Most math and literacy items have career related subjects. The test item can be used as a pre-test and post-test encompassing the actual project. For example, a math item using a shelf can be brought to reality in a building and trades classroom. Through collaboration with counselors, the teachers can use common academic terminology and explain concepts in a similar manner.

1. Create lessons via workplace documents. Create literacy lessons using workplace documents such as, job applications, user manuals, tax documents, legal documents, maps, brochures and recipes. Employers are interested in students applying their literacy skills to workplace scenarios; therefore, in collaboration with counselors, teachers should identify literacy skills that promote college and career readiness using these documents.

As counselors and educators collaborate, they can offer a holistic approach that helps integrate work place skills within the math and literacy curriculum. This team approach will answer students' question, “Why do I have to know this?”

---

Shantele Raper, GCDFI, has been passionate about Career and Technical Education since she started teaching Business Education in 2002. Her career path led her to Career Guidance where she has served in various leadership positions including, Arkansas Career Guidance Association and Arkansas Career Development Association. She currently works as Instructional Technology Director at Osceola School District and as a Career Development Facilitator Instructor with Knowledge Works. She has a MSE in Business Technology from Arkansas State University and is currently pursuing an EdS in Leadership and Administration. She received the Arkansas Career Orientation Teacher of the Year award in 2009 and she is a National Board Certified Teacher. She can be reached at sraper@osd1.org

Career Guidance Award - Call for Nominations!!

Do you make a difference in Career Guidance? Do you know someone who does?

Purpose
The purpose of the ACTE Career Guidance Award is to recognize school counselors and career development professionals who are currently making significant contributions in career and technical education programs in their communities and/or states. Recipients of this award must have made significant contributions to advocate, educate and communicate the value of CTE as a viable career option to a variety of audiences, including students and adults. They must also demonstrate exemplary efforts in helping students and/or adults evaluate their abilities, interests and talents that encourage them to develop academic and career goals aligned with career and technical education.

Eligibility
Individuals who are currently employed as full-time baccalaureate school counselors and/or career development professionals involved in career and technical education. A nominee should have been involved in Association for Career and Technical Education activities at the state, Regional and/or national levels, and must have been a member of ACTE and a state association at the time of nomination to the Region level.

The first (ever) ACTE Career Guidance Award winner will be announced on Wednesday evening, November 28^th at the Career Tech VISION 2012 (ACTE National, Annual Conference in Atlanta, GA) Awards Banquet.

Application and info here:

https://www.acteonline.org/award_guidance.aspx

Thoughts to all School Counselors in Colorado

Colorado has been hit hard with tragedies this past Spring/Summer.
The Guidance & Career Development Division would like to take this time to honor the role of School Counselors at this time. Despite the summer breaks, Counselors have been called to duty to respond to families and students who have been impacted by fires, deaths, tragedies and crisis.
Please know we salute all types of 'guiders' here....and currently hold in our hearts the 'guiders' in Colorado this July.

We'd like to share the poignant message from one of our favorite Senators:
Love Back

Yesterday 4 million coloradans went to work, played football in their front yard, strangers opened doors for each other, people gave blood, offered shelter, served hot meals, held grandkids, played pick up basketball and committed unnumbered acts of kindness and gentleness. One Coloradan dressed up like a villain and believed that by showing up at the site of America's mythical hero he could slay our actual heroes.

Its true there was no batman sitting in the theatre to fly down and tackle james holmes, as he hoped their might be. He had tactical assault gear covering his whole body ready for America to fight back.

But love is more organized than that, love has cellphones, and ambulances, nurses and doctors, complete strangers and policemen and emergency responders always at the ready, love has nurses who will jump out of bed in the middle of the night and get a family member to watch their child so they can rush to the hospital and save the life of someone they've never met, love has first responders who will walk into a Bobbie trapped building to save the lives of neighbors they will never meet. it must be lonely being James Holmes, spending the first part of your life planning alone for an act act that will leave you sitting alone for the rest of your life. For the rest of us, life is crowded, Love is always only 3 numbers and one movie seat away.

We have lived our country's history as a chapter of wars, and many of those wars we have been blessed to win. we are a team that loves each other and will fight for each other, and if you punch us in the mouth we will fight back.

That is one of our obvious strengths, but it is not our greatest strength. America's awesome strength to fight is overwhelmed by its irrepressible strength to love. James Holmes took 12 lives last night. Love saved 59 lives. Policemen on the scene in minutes, strangers carrying strangers, nurses and doctors activated all over the city But we didnt stop there, love saved the 700 other people who walked out of the Aurora movie theatre unhurt. But we didnt stop there. Love saved the 5000 who went to see batman all over colorado, and the 1.2 million who saw it all over the country, who walked in and out safely with their friends, arm in arm. but we didnt stop there, love claimed the 4 million other coloradans who went to bed peacefully last night, and who woke up this morning committed to loving each other a little deeper. the awe of last night is not that a man full of hate can take 12 people's lives, it is that a nation full of love can save 300 million lives every day.

I sat this morning wondering what I could do to help: give blood, support victims, raise money, stop violence, how could we start to fight back?

My friends were texting me they had plans to take their kids to batman tonight and now wereafraid to go. Others who were going to play pick up basketball or go out to dinner who were afraid to leave home, who thought they would bunker down in their home and wonder, how do we fight back?the answer is
We love back. We live back. We deepen our commitments to all the unnumbered acts of kindness that make America an unrrendable fabric. We respond by showing that we will play harder, and longer, we will serve more meals, play more games, eat more food, listen to more jazz, go to more movies, give more hugs snd say more thank yous and i love yous than ever before.

So while james Thomas settles into the cell where he will spend the rest of his life, wondering what we will do to fight back, we will love back. We will go to a park this afternoon and play soccer, we will go to the playground and restaurants and movie theatres of our city all weekend and all year.

He should know not only that he failed in his demented attempt to be the villain, but that batman didn't have to leap off the screen to stop him, because we had a far more organized and powerful force than any superhero could ever have. even the twelve lives that he took, this nation will love so strongly and so deeply that we will ensure they get a lifetime full of love out of a life he tried to cut short. And the 59 lives we took back, will be so overrun with love that they will live their lives feeling blessed every day, and every one who ever meets them will pass on in an instant a love they never knew they earned but we will never let them forget. in a movie theatre in aurora 50 years from now, one of last nights survivors will be waiting in the popcorn line and mention that he was in theatre 9 on that terrible summer night in 2012. And inexplicably, with an arm full of popcorn, a total stranger will reach out and give that old man a huge hug and say, i'm so glad you made it. Love back. We've already won.

CACTE Collaborative Summit 2012!

Excited to see folks down in Pueblo, CO next week!

Events and sessions of importance for Guidance & Career Development Division:
Monday July 16th
EDU 250 meeting 1-2:30pm
Social 2:45pm-4:30pm - including a River Boat ride and Wine/Cheese tasting with local vendors


For those registered for the conference:
Tuesday July 17th
Great opening session 8:30a
ICAP session 1:25pm
Gender Equity Session 3:30pm
Social and Celebration 5pm
Wednesday July 18th
Middle School CTE Programs 11:30am
Industry Tours!
Thursday July 19th
Learning How to Read Gang Related Non-Verbals & Confidence through Body Language - Workshops! 9:30a-11:30a.
Guidance & Career Development Gathering 1pm (Tentative)

Looking forward to seeing you!

Counselor- CTE Specialist Endorsement

Class offered July 1-22nd online
1 day face-to-face at the CACTE Collaborative Summit: http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?474669

Come play!

MS CTE in Colorado

Middle School CTE Programs are happening in Colorado!!

www.coloradostateplan.com/middleschool.htm

Creating Your Own Brand

Given the change in industry from 20th century "Company Man" to "Brand You" (from "The Brand You 50" by Tom Peters) there's a huge need to teach students about PoWeR Skills to navigate a complex career world: collaborating, building relationships, and creating your own brand to sell yourself will be essential. Knowing how to 'perform' and how to constantly sell your work will be essential skills for our students. This website is pretty rad: http://www.tompeters.com/

Peters gives tons of tips that could be croswalked with language arts especially. It has a lot of personal marketing strategies that could easily be utilized as common core language arts activities. Stuff like, create an ad for yourself, for example. check it out.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html
This is awesome and I think speaks to some of the new ways in which we are creating our future workforce. I'm showing it to kids tomorrow as part of some career guidance lessons. But, it speaks to huge gains in education through internet video, beyond MIT's open courseware: affecting every industry.

Quick Facts of Women in the Labor Force

Though the data is from 2010....Fascinating to see the trends, the reality, the battle....
Please use as a teaching tool for your young women students.
http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-laborforce-10.htm

CCDA Spring Training - you can show up Tomorrow!

Colorado Career Development Association (CCDA) 
Spring Training 2012

DATE:        Friday, April 6^th, 2012

TIME:        8:30-9:00 a.m. - Breakfast & Check-In

                 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. - CCDA All Day Training

                 *CEU's Available*

LOCATION:  CENTURYLINK CONFERENCE CENTER

                     3898 South Teller Street

                     Lakewood, CO 80235

Liz Lierman

BIOGRAPHY: Liz Lierman is an Associate Director for the Office of Career Services at Oberlin College, where she provides career counseling, pre-law advising, and frequently presents on career development topics. Liz holds a BA in Psychology from Williams College, master's degrees in Social Administration and Nonprofit Organizations from Case Western Reserve University, and is a Licensed Social Worker.

 

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION - Motivational Interviewing

• An overview of Motivational Interviewing, where MI fits within a counseling process, and the core assumptions of a practitioner using MI.
• The four principles that guide MI practice, and examples of how to use the principles with clients.
• Exercises to allow participants to begin using MI principles and strategies.
• An overview of integrating MI into career counseling, types of clients for whom it may be most helpful, and the timing of MI within a career counseling process.
• Examples of ways MI can be incorporated into career counseling, and varied according to the client's presenting concerns.
• Exercises to allow participants to practice using MI principles in ways that are relevant to their work settings and client populations.

Dr. John Littrell

BIOGRAPHY: Dr. John Littrell served as a faculty member in Counseling and Career Development at Colorado State University. His specialty is the topic of brief counseling. John is the author of Brief Counseling in Action (1998); co-author with Jean Peterson of Portrait and Model of a School Counselor (2005); and co-author with Luigi Gerardi of Counseling in Companies: Great Gains with People Using Small Steps (2010). He has 33 refereed articles in major counseling journals, 15 book chapters, and 5 brief counseling videotapes/DVDs. John has served on the editorial boards of Professional School Counseling andCounselor Education and Supervision. In retirement, John is writing short story murder mysteries that feature famous counselors/therapists who solved murders in their practice using their own theoretical frameworks.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION - Solution-Focused Tools That Make a Difference

This workshop offers four powerful solution-focused tools to speed up the process of change. Demonstrated will be: (1) discovering changes that have already occurred, (2) interrupting with respect and finesse, (3) asking miracle questions and scaling questions, and (4) employing the Session Rating Scale and the Outcome Rating Scale.

Registration Information
	CCDA Members	Non-Members	Student Members*
Early Bird Rate  (Must register before March 15th)	$85	$100	$55
Regular Registration Rate (March 15th-April 5th)	$95	$110	$65
Day of Conference (Friday, April 6th)	$105	$120	$75

*To be eligible for the Student Member registration rate you have to become a CCDA Student Member first!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our CCDA Training
Registration Chair at Jessie.Czerwonka@ucdenver.edu 

Learning Syles....Controversy? or Fact?

Great presentation on neuroscience and learning. Here are the ppt slides used: http://www.caroltomlinson.com/Presentations/2012ASCD_LearningStyleControversy.pdf

College, Career & Citizen

Great recent issue of Education Leadership magazine put out by ASCD. You won't be able to read the whole thing unless you are a member but the snippets are worth it!
http://www.educationalleadership-digital.com/educationalleadership/201204#pg1

Teaching People

Check out th One Person/Multiple Careers: The Book by Marci Alboher

http://heymarci.com/

We learn so many transferable skills in CTE. We can make those skills evident as transferable with this awesomeness: http://www.coloradostateplan.com/content_standards.htm

http://www.coloradostateplan.com/standards/Arts_STEMandIT_StandardsAndAlignments.pdf

Do it! use it! love it!

career development for all! Baby Boomers make for unexpected interns!

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/03/29/The-50-Year-Old-Intern-Boomers-Go-Back-to-the-Bottom.aspx#page1
It's never too late for a new start. Also, sad that in the first paragraph the subject was told she couldn't work in a medical lab because she is deaf. Awesome she changed plans to follow her dreams at 50!!!

Workplace Gender Balance Project

Great image to use and share with young women and post on walls  in hallways.

Borrowed from another states' resource for women to know they can obtain a career in a male-dominated  field

Great image for our young men to know that it would be cool to be in early childhood education or  teaching - a female dominated field.

Great image to share with our young men that it would cool to be an mechanics, auto-tech and so forth - a male dominated field.

Check out more info on the CTE Workplace Gender Balance Grant here: http://www.coloradostateplan.com/genderBalance.htm

If you'd like to volunteer your time to help colleges write their proposals, help read proposals and award please contact me: lauren.jones@cccs.edu 

RADCounselor

Reach (Reticular Activating System,) Attitude (Amygdala )Develop (Dopamine)


Success happens when we understand the brain!
Teaching becomes robust. Guidance becomes richer. Our students become PoWeRful!
Great resource website: http://www.radteach.com/

Neurology and learning in the brain

Just as in the book by John Medina: Brian Rules....here too is yet, another great resource on why our student might struggle with learning and why our brains are the reason:
http://caiutube.caiu.org/caiu/features/KpB9yfQ_0m09AFRgdcqG

Business, Marketing and Public Administration Industry

I also love this website. Again, what skills do our students need to head into the workforce ready to supply this industry?
This happens to be from one of my old editors at the Colorado Springs Independent. It's Arts and Entertainment for a younger generation. I know an eighth grader who would be a perfect fit for creating content for a site like this (when she's an adult!). Our students need knowledge of industry needs and future career opportunities. They already have all the "swag" our 21st Century requires of young entrepreneurs.
http://centraltrack.com/

The Ever Changing Needs of Industry

Given the rise of the internet, news and media outlets have had to create a new business model. What skills will our future journalists need? Here's a brilliant news source in the Springs. I'd love to pick the publisher's brain about what skills she utilizes in her enterprise. Also, the link will take you to an interview of a local entrepreneur she interviewed.
http://www.springsbusiness.com/thomas-tc-dantzler-colorado-springs-business-owner-olympian/

Self Branding is What Students Do Best, Right?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1823437/mastering-the-uncomfortable-art-of-personal-branding
Found this on the twitter account I mentioned below. I love fast company. I think it's a publication that could be used in career guidance. Showing it to kids and asking them, what do you like best in this magazine? Or even asking them to 'self brand' for an interview, or in their community.

social media and career guidance

I have some ideas about how to connect students to marketing and social media (language arts and stem!). Here's the twitter account of a local marketing business here in the Springs https://twitter.com/#!/720Media I know a lot of students who would bring great talent to this industry and I'm excited to teach them to explore their interests in this field!

SHOP is not a four letter word

From one blog to another...
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/shop-four-letter-word-jim-berman

SAVE THE DATE: Summer CACTE conference

For Counselors who would like to pursue a CTE Endorsement, the Community College 1 credit course will be taught during this conference. It will save you money, give you immediate credit and offer a great environment for networking, collaborating and having fun.

EDU 250 being taught at this years' CACTE conference! 1.5 days only!
Here's the link for the form for Endorsement through CDE: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeprof/download/pdf/cteworksheets/ctespecialist.pdf

It will be in association with Western Colorado Community College (WCCC) and the instructor is yours truly, Lauren Jones. :)

Mark your calendars!
Looking forward to seeing you there!

Latest TECHNIQUES magazine subject: College and Career Readiness

If you are a member of ACTE - Association of Career and Technical Educators and have a log in, you can access the content of the latest Techniques Magazine - seen here at www.acteonline.org

What does College and Career Ready Mean?!

read up on an article, with videos and good 'take-aways'.
Explore this website resource too!
http://www.nrccte.org/

Career Counseling pertinent for Adolescent Literacy

Check out a great article from NCDA - National Career Development Association:
http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/56638/_PARENT/layout_details_cc/true

Role of Career Guidance in CTE

http://www.acteonline.org/uploadedFiles/Publications_and_Online_Media/files/Guidance_issuebrief.pdf

Read, Share, Print, Order and Embrace!

ACTE: Guidance and Career Development Newsletter

http://www.acteonline.org/uploadedFiles/About_ACTE/files/Guidance%20and%20Career%20Development%20Division%20Newsletter%20-%20February%202012.pdf

Very Cool articles within this newsletter regarding Non-Traditional Career Pathways, Guidance and Career Development Award and other best practices. Enjoy!

Education: the 21st century collaboration station

I feel like a dork for writing it, but lately I've been thinking a lot about Frank Parsons, "The Father of Vocational Counseling." In the early 20th century, Frank Parsons led the charge of vocational guidance. Society celebrated vocational guidance as way to eradicate “poverty and substandard living conditions spawned by the rapid industrialization and consequent migration of people to major urban centers at the turn of the century.”
Industrialization caused a huge shift in the needs of our workforce. People moved out of agricultural and rural environments into the city, where they needed to know how to be creative to meet the needs of a quickly changing society. Through career guidance and education, we had to build an internal capacity in our workforce. We also had to physically build the infrastructures like transportation and buildings, to support our cities.
I’m fascinated by the similarities between those times and these times. Our current workforce need has pushed for a more direct relationship between educational institutions and the community. I love being a counselor right now, and I love being a core counselor because I very much feel like my work is about developing pathways from education to the community. More than ever, education is being built on routes students can take to becoming strong contributers to a 21st century community.
The new common core standards include collaboration as a 21st century skill, which seems like an expectation that educators model collaboration as a style of community leadership. The state’s definition of school readiness includes the following: “Readiness is enhanced when schools, families, and community service providers work collaboratively to ensure that every child is ready for higher levels of learning in academic content.”

Our best educators have collaborated with the community for decades, bringing students on field trips and inviting exciting guest speakers to talk to their classrooms. Now, there’s support from the state to do this intentionally. Sometimes, I think of these pathways as vacuums.
The new Postsecondary Workforce Readiness (PoWeR) endorsed Diploma, which you can learn about here [click on the ppt given by Matt Gianneschi at the CACTA midwinter conference], will allow more flexibility for students to graduate. Criteria for receiving the diploma include:
*Students shows academic excellence in three of seven content areas (I’m excited about the possibilities for students who are twice accelerated in an area).
*Student does not need remediation in a content area to continue onto a postsecondary institution
*Lastly, the new PoWeR Endorsed Diploma will place an emphasis on the role of Career and Technical Education
˜ CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION
˜ a) High School Courses: student receives a course grade of B or better in at least three years (or equivalent) of coursework in Career and Technical education, two of which must be from a single area of focus.

There has also been some work done to align CTE program standards with content standards. It’s exciting to see some content area teachers asking about our CTE programs in D11. And to see our CTE teachers so integrated into our local workforce. I’m happily supporting these conversations and collaborations between our district, the community and postsecondary institutions. I’m looking forward to deepening our collaborations with our local library district, arts community and maybe even our local media outlets. These organizations have equally vested interest in developing and supporting our community. I’m also calling on help from Gully Stanford of Collegeincolorado, the CDE's collaboration guru.
The 20th century brought us cars, Bakelite, quantum theory (O.k, maybe Bakelite was not that impressive... but you get the picture). It seems like if we got enough passionate community members in a room with some passionate educators, we could inspire our students to create something so new and so profound, it is beyond what we grownups have ever been able to imagine.

School Counselors Rock PoWeR Skills and Career Guidance!

Happy New Year and warm welcome to this inaugural posting on the CTE Guidance and Career Development Blog! I am excited to hear from Guidance and CTE professionals about how we support students and help them make the connection between education and the world of work. It's obvious to us as adults, but how do we bridge that gap for students?

For this blog posting, I nabbed a counselor from Colorado Springs School District 11(my district) and I asked him a few questions about how he collaborates with educators in his high school to speak a common language about Postsecondary Workforce Readiness (PoWeR) Skills, which can be found here.

Scott Crosby from Doherty collaborates within his building to teach students to “understand the relevance of learning to postsecondary and workforce readiness.”

Scott said “students might not know education is relevant because they’re sixteen, but I tell them it is. Learning isn’t just about likes and dislikes it’s about building a broad base of knowledge about making you a better citizen overall.” He also teaches PWR skills when he goes into the classroom to develop students’ ICAPs.

During individual planning, Scott teaches students about the relationship between service learning and future planning.

He tells students, “You want to demonstrate that you give of yourself for no other reason than because it’s for somebody else. Volunteer work looks good because it shows you have compassion and that you’re able to be culturally relevant.” Developmentally, students at the high school level have a hard time seeing beyond themselves, their friends and their school.

"If you want to be in the medical field and you volunteer, you see things from the real part of the industry. You get to know what it’s like to walk by a hospital room and see patients, you experience the real environment,” said Scott.

What’s great about our state’s adoption of Arne Duncan’s 21st Century Skills is that it encourages collaboration with other educators and gives counselors an opportunity to teach kids relevance like Scott does. There’s an obvious connection between the Postsecondary Workforce Readiness (PoWeR) skills and the American School Counselor Association Standards. The state mandates that districts receive professional development to integrate PWR skills into the classroom. What an awesome opportunity to collaborate and support our schools, CTE, and the community. Teaching students the how and why of being responsible for their learning: this is just one of the PWR skills that reflect our area of expertise as school counselors. Woot!