Teaching Assessing and Reporting Career and Employability Skills
Teaching, Assessing, and Reporting Career and Employability Skills Anoka-Hennepin Secondary Technical Education Program Sean Beggin, Crystal Scott, Kathy Vaughn, Mike Hilber
Who are we? Crystal Scott: Cosmetology and Barbering Instructor with 15 years of industry experience as a licensed Cosmetologist, Manager, and Salon Owner; MEd in Educational Leadership & Family Studies. Kathy Vaughn: Business & Art Technology Teacher and Achievement Coach at STEP; MEd in Technology, with 31 years of entrepreneurial and accounting experience in industry. Mike Hilber: Engineering/Manufacturing teacher at Secondary Technical Education Program, with over 30 years of industry experience. Sean Beggin: Associate Principal at STEP; 4 th year in CTE, 18 years in traditional high school setting.
What is STEP? ● Secondary Technical Education Program--a specialty school that focuses on CTE courses ● Created in 2002 as a collaboration between Anoka. Hennepin Schools and Anoka Technical College to help high school students find pathways to postsecondary education and careers ● Partner with over 20 colleges in more than 20 different programs that span seven career pathways ● Over 100 full time and 1500 part time students (representing 2500 seats) from 5 different high schools attend classes
Why we started this journey. . .
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)
Partner Discussion 1. Think of a time that you may have inflated a grade based on a student’s circumstance. What reasons do you feel could/have justified this choice? 1. Think of a time that you may have deflated a grade based on a student’s circumstance. What reasons do you feel could/have justified this choice? 1. Do you give participation points? And how are they determined? 1. Discuss the potential implications of how this affects the accuracy,
Conflict and Resolution ● Several staff had trouble reconciling the ideas set forth by Wormeli and others. The feedback that is often emphasized by advisory boards and industry partners regularly expresses concern for the need of “soft skills” over academic or technical skills. ● Our response was to explore how to measure Career And Employability Standards without artificially deflating the academic grade.
Supporting Research Behind CES ● 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)
We believe. . . ● In a CTE classroom, it is important to clearly define, teach, 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 increasingly important to consider a dual-grading system that clearly separates academic achievement from career and employability skills.
What are Career and Employability Skills?
Program-wide Measures MEASURE 09. 01. 03 Identify and demonstrate positive personal qualities and work behaviors needed to be employable MEASURE 09. 01 Understand how personal conduct affects job success MEASURE 09. 05. 03 Identify and exhibit traits for retaining employment MEASURE 02. 04 Communicate effectively with customers and coworkers to foster positive relationships MEASURE 02. 05. 02 Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization when preparing written documents MN Common Core Competencies
How to Join a Google Classroom ● Using any Google sponsored email address, sign in to google classroom at https: //classroom. google. com/ ● Using the + Icon at the top right of your page, choose join a class and enter course code: l 12 k 4 yy
Classroom Implementation & Tracking Google Classroom Resources - Rubric Examples, Tracking Sheets, Conference Feedback, and Google Form for Student Self Assessment Course Code: l 12 k 4 yy
If we assess, we have to instruct … We realized that we had to come up with standard ways both to TEACH and ASSESS career and employability skills. We looked at many instructional resources and selected a variety of tools that different instructors chose to implement based on their course specific content. Some examples include: ● ● ● S/P 2 online system : Soft Skills Training Program (Umbrella License $250 Annually) Skills. USA : Employability Curriculum (Per pupil - CTSO Membership $15 Anually) Conover : Workplace Readiness - Soft Skills Curriculum (Per Pupil - $25) NOCTI : 21 st Century Skills, Workplace Readiness (Per Pupil - $14 -38 Per Test) Applied Educational Systems : Career Center 21 - Employability Skills (30 Free-Trial, Enrollment Based membership: $40 -60 per semester seat)
Teaching and Tracking of CES At STEP, each collaborative team was given the freedom to teach and track their classes in the most appropriate way for their content area ● CTs chose to break down the 5 agreed upon Standards into content specific learning targets ● Instructors supplemented additional Standards based on content ● Methods of tracking ○ ○ Apps: Class Dojo, LMS, Mastery Manager Spreadsheets
Assessing and Reporting of CES As with teaching and tracking, each collaborative team has the freedom to assess and report CES in the most appropriate way for their curriculum ● Based on learning targets and industry feedback, rubrics were created ● Measures were implemented into daily lessons for CES feedback ● Early and consistent communication methods with students and families were developed ● Some teachers incorporated a % into the final grade ● Added special comments to our reporting system
Q&A
Resources from Presentation Please see the additional document posted on the CTE website with workable Word document that can be manipulated in any way you see fit. Please keep in mind that some of the provided example documents were based on the 2011 Common standards document and are currently in a state of revision using the 9/2015 update. If we can help you in any way, please ask. If you have ideas, please share. Let’s work together to make learning more relevant for students. Thanks for your support. Contact Information for Presenters: Sean Beggin Mike Hilber sean. beggin@ahschools. us michael. hilber@ahschools. us crystal. scott@ahschools. us kathleen. vaughn@ahschools. us Crystal Scott Kathy Vaughn
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: //cte. ed. gov/employabilityskills/index. php/framework/
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