Assessing and Reporting Career and Employability Skills AnokaHennepin

Assessing and Reporting Career and Employability Skills Anoka-Hennepin Secondary Technical Education Program Sean Beggin, Mike Hilber, Crystal Scott, Kathy Vaughn

What is STEP? - Created in 2002 as a collaboration between Anoka-Hennepin Schools and Anoka Technical College to help high school students find pathways to post-secondary education. - Partner with over 20 colleges in over 20 different programs that span seven career pathways. - Over 100 full time and 1500 part time students attend classes.

Why Grading?

Why Grading? - Started off as a question of how do we assess and what do we assess across programs. - Set off on an exploration of grading practices in general. - Conducted book studies and researched the work of Wormeli, Guskey, Marzano, Erickson, Mc. Tighe, O’Connor, Reeves, Vatterott, Winger, Dueck and others. - Paid particular attention to O’Connor’s 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. (hand out)

Best Practice in Grading and Reporting Historically, as teachers evaluated students, an all-encompassing grade was used that included academic achievement, preparedness, cooperation, “busy-work” completion, and effort. The meaning of this grade was difficult to interpret. A “C” grade could mean that the student mastered 70% of the material or it could mean that the student mastered 100% of the material but was late in handing in a project. As Standards-Based Grading has become more prevalent in high school courses, there has been a shift away from this all-encompassing grade. Standards-Based Grading is designed to measure learning—the mastery of a Learning Target or Academic Standard. With the adoption of Standards-Based Grading, many teachers, schools and districts have moved toward only reporting the end product as it relates to students’ specific academic achievements or level of performance.

Rick Wormeli “A grade is supposed to provide an accurate, undiluted indicator of a student’s mastery of learning standards. That’s it. It is not meant to be a part of a reward, motivation, or behavioral contract system. If the grade is distorted by weaving in a student’s personal behavior, character, and work habits, it cannot be used to successfully provide feedback, document progress, or inform our instructional decisions regarding that student—the three primary reasons we grade. ” (Wormeli, 2006)

Conflict and Resolution - Several staff had trouble reconciling the ideas set forth by O’Connor, Wormeli, and others with the feedback we often hear from advisory boards -- industry partners tell us that they are more concerned about “soft skills” than actual technical skills. - The we found an acceptable middle ground … In Answers to Essential Questions About Standards, Assessments, Grading, and Reporting, Thomas Guskey and Lee Ann Jung say:

Guskey and Jung (Answers to Essential Questions) “To the extent that process criteria related to homework, class participation, attitude, effort, responsibility, behavior, and other nonacademic factors remain important, they too can be reported, but should be kept separate [from product criteria]. Doing so will clarify the meaning of grades and greatly enhance their communicative value. ” (p. 96)

We believe. . . In a Career and Technical Education classroom, it is important to clearly define, assess and report the skills involved in the process of learning as well as the final product. As the move to standards-based grading gains momentum, it is equally important to consider a dualgrading system that includes a Career and Employability Skills Grade, a system that clearly separates the academic achievement from the career and employability skills.

Support It is clear that 21 st Century employees need advanced skills to meet the needs of the U. S. economy. While academic and technical skills are critical, the importance of workforce readiness skills is also emerging to the forefront of skills gap discussions. Skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, applying academic knowledge and situational judgment are more important than ever to an individual’s labor market success. As employers seek ways to measure these skills efficiently and evaluate potential hires, the use of workforce readiness credentials is likely to increase. Workforce readiness credentials provide value added to the high school diploma and help adults to gain the skills necessary for workplace success. CTE is at the forefront of this increase, preparing students at all levels for the testing that leads to a workforce readiness credential, and perhaps more importantly, with the skills necessary for 21 st century success. Association of Career and Technical Education

Research Behind Career and Employability Skills In a survey done by Seattle Jobs Initiative, more than 75% of employers surveyed said that soft skills were as important as—or more important than—technical skills in securing entry-level employment. Research on predicting the future career success of students supports employers’ opinions that some soft skills are a better predictor of adult success (salaries, graduation rates, home ownership) than technical skills. Local employers rank professionalism/integrity, reliability, communication and teamwork as the top soft skills priorities of entry-level employment. (Pritchard, 2013)

Standards Based MN Common Core Competencies Collaboration on which standards would be graded systemically Career One Stop - American Job Center National Network of Business and Industry Associations CTE. ed. gov - Employability Skills Framework Industry-specific standards

STEP Proposal Standards-based (MN CC - narrowed down to 17, then voted on top 5) Standardized Test/Cert (NOCTI - 21 st Century Skills for Workplace Success) Communication plan Teacher-led Pilot Not calculated into GPA (see hand out)

Program-wide Measures 09. 06. 01 Model behaviors that demonstrate reliability and dependability. 09. 01 Demonstrate self-discipline, self-worth, positive attitude, and integrity in a work situation. 09. 06. 05 Identify work behaviors and personal qualities necessary to retain employment. 07. 04 Treat people with respect. 02. 05. 03 Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization when preparing written documents.

Examples from a variety of Career Fields Mike Hilber - Engineering and Manufacturing Crystal Scott - Cosmetology and Barbering Kathy Vaughn - Accounting and Art Technology

Questions?

Helpful Links http: //www. careeronestop. org/Competency. Model/competency-models/building-blocks-model. aspx http: //businessroundtable. org/sites/default/files/Common%20 Employability_asingle_fm. pdf http: //careercompetencies. org/? page_id=111 http: //cte. ed. gov/employabilityskills/index. php/framework/ http: //careercompetencies. org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Personal-Qualities-LRI-Training-Participant. pdf