ACTE 2007 Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo
December 13-15
Las Vegas Convention Center, NV

For the past three years, the Association for Professional Development in Career and Technical Education (APDCTE) has conducted an annual survey of state directors to identify state and national priorities related to career and technical education.

As the premiere professional development experience for career and technical educators, ACTE’s Annual Convention and Career Tech Expo has a number of sessions that can help states with their priorities.

Below is a list of the issues (in ranked order) that the state directors identified in the APDCTE survey. Following each issue is a list of relevant sessions that have been accepted or are being developed for the ACTE Convention.

Updated as of September 20, 2007

Dual Enrollment

• Articulations and Scholarship Opportunities
• Collaborative Professional Development for Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Teachers
• Connecting Community, Careers, and College
• From Alternative Licensure to the Ph.D.: A Strategy for Developing Quality CTE Teachers
• Industry-based Skills Certification
• Partnering Patterns for Progress
• Secondary to Postsecondary Articulation Initiatives: Creating, Enhancing and Strengthening Partnerships
• Tales from a CTE Focused Middle College
• Technical Dual Credit/Enrollment: A Plan for How Students Can Have it All and at NO Cost for Parents

Integration of Academics

• A CTE/Academic Integration Partnership Project Works
• A Guide to Collaborative Teaching and Assessment of Integrated Math and Science to Facilitate Awarding Core Academic Credit in CTE Programs
• Beyond Resumes and Cover Letters, Technical Writing in the Classroom
• Combining Rigor and Relevance: CTE Curriculum Mapping Using ACT College Readiness Standards and HEAR
• CTE and Academic Integration That Fosters Metacognitive Connections
• Everyone Loves a Good Story
• Explicit Literacy Instruction in the Career and Technical Education Classroom
• Integrating Reading Strategies into the CTE Classroom
• Leading the Career -Technical Education Enterprise: Which way?
• Linking CTE and Academic Education through Instruction, Curriculum and Assessment
• Meeting the High School Mathematics Requirements-Implementing Algebra II within Career Technical Education
• Necessary Changes = Learning Benefits: Actions Yield Performance Success in an Urban Career and Technical School
• Providing Blind Students with 21st Century Math Skills
• Why do I Need to Know Math? Strategies for Improving Math Skills Through CTE
• Writing Strategies in Career and Technical Education Courses

Career Pathways

• Which Credential Route to Go? Perceptions of FCS Interns and Traditional Student Teachers
• Academic Tech Prep A Business Partnership That Works
• Building Pathways to College and Careers
• Career Assessment - Defining Positive Skills for the Transition from School to Work
• Culinary Arts Foundations- A New Pathway to Culinary Arts Careers
• Electronic Career Pathways Performed another Way: Assessments, Pathways, and Data Collection
• Guiding Career Pathway Programs through Self Assessment
• Managing the WEB - Workforce, Education and Business
• Tech Prep Career Pathways and Career Coaching Programs
• The Power of Pathways: Using Career Clusters and Career Pathways in High School Reform

Career Clusters

ACTE is working with the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium in an attempt to bring more sessions dedicated to career clusters. In addition, ACTE has partnered with the National Partnership for Careers in Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security, which will conduct its eighth annual conference prior to ACTE’s Annual Convention. In addition to these initiatives, the following sessions have been accepted:

• AchieveTexas
• Implementing Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Career Clusters: Opportunities and Challenges
• Special Populations in Career Clusters
• The Power of Pathways: Using Career Clusters and Career Pathways in High School Reform

Career Awareness

• Which Credential Route to Go? Perceptions of FCS Interns and Traditional Student Teachers
• "Skills on Wheels" Connecting Education and Careers
• "What Are Non-traditional Careers and Why Should My Career Center Care?"
• Business Ownership in School: A Value-Added Supplement to the Reinvented High School
• C.O.W. Day - Career Exploration on the Mooove!
• Can You Name an Industry Without Entrepreneurs?
• Career Assessment-Defining Positive Skills for the Transition from School to Work
• Career Interventions - An ACRN Career Research Grant
• Career Maturity of General Education Development (GED) Students
• Changing Attitudes About Manufacturing: The New Product Development Initiative
• Create the Future: Middle School Choices
• Culinary Arts Foundations-A New Pathway to Culinary Arts Careers
• Early CTE Awareness: Where Career Opportunities Begin
• Engaging Students with World Class Manufacturing
• Female Recruitment - Cheering in the Classroom
• Fully Implemented Guidance Programs Contribute to Student Success: The Missouri Story
• High Flying Careers: Follow Your Dreams
• Life After Graduation . . . Make It Real, Make It Pay, Make It Happen!
• Managing the WEB - Workforce, Education and Business
• Manufacturing Biotechnology: Let's Be Real
• Programming with Alice to Increase Interest in Computer Science Careers for High School Students
• Taking STEPS Into the Engineering Pipeline
• The FIRST Solution: Robotics Activities Point the Way To Career Success
• The Louisiana ePortal Initiative: Perfecting Pathways for Successful Transitions
• The Nurse of Tomorrow - Eighteen and Energetic
• The Taxman Cometh: Running a High School Tax Center

Reading Programs

• Everyone Loves a Good Story
• Explicit Literacy Instruction in the Career and Technical Education Classroom
• Integrating Reading Strategies into the CTE Classroom

Assessment Rubrics

ACTE is working with the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute on a one-day pre-Convention conference as well as individual concurrent sessions during the ACTE Convention.

• CSI-Classroom Success Investigation: Identifying the Secrets of Student Success
• CTE Program Assessment: Providing Accountability for Kentucky
• Developing an Instrument for Assessment in Drafting Technology
• Electronic Career Pathways Performed another Way: Assessments, Pathways, and Data Collection
• Focus on Assets - A Postive Approach to Assessment, Evaluation, Group Process, and Problem Solving for Career and Technical Educators
• Integrating Curriculum with Varied Assessments
• Linking CTE and Academic Education through Instruction, Curriculum and Assessment
• Test Writing Tips and Online Rubrics
• Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3
• The Power of an e-Portfolio

Small Learning Communities

ACTE is working with the National Academy Foundation to develop a strand of sessions dedicated to career academies. In addition to those sessions, the following are also appropriate:

• 9th Grade Academy: Transitioning Students from Middle to High School

Student Data for Decision Making

• Creating a 20/20 Vision for Educating Students
• Data Driven Teacher Conferences
• Electronic Career Pathways Performed another Way: Assessments, Pathways, and Data Collection
• Obtaining Information Through Basic Research
• Research Topics in CTE: What the Experts Suggest!

Teacher Technical Skills Updating

• ASE/NATEF Program Certification Update
• Automotive Technology Program Certification: It isn't as Difficult as you May Think!
• CareerSafe Online OSHA Training
• Computer Graphic and Animation Applications in Education
• Creating Innovative Videos with Movie Maker 2.0
• Digital Tools and Blogging in Education: Basic Skills Every Educator Needs to Master these New Tools for use in the Classroom
• NATEF Evaluation Team Leader Training
• No Teacher Left Behind: Reframing CTE Professional Development
• Podcasting: a New Generation of Teaching and Learning
• School and Classroom/Lab Safety and Health-- Student and Young worker NIOSH safety update
• Staying Cutting Edge in an Ever Changing Field: Health Sciences Technology
• Vodcasting Essentials-You Building the Video

Curriculum Development

• Activating Student Potential with Baldrige
• Assessing Your Instruction To Meet State Standards
• BT5 - Business Technology Online Curriculum Guide: 2006 and Beyond
• Building Financial Literacy Foundations at the Middle Level!
• Combining Rigor and Relevance: CTE Curriculum Mapping Using ACT College Readiness Standards and HEAR
• Curriculum Development Roundtable
• Designing Secondary Architecture Curriculum
• Integrating Curriculum with Varied Assessments
• Linking CTE and Academic Education through Instruction, Curriculum and Assessment
• Teaching Teachers to Write Curriculum Using Only the Experiential Learning Process: An Amazing Case Study
• The Wellness Project: An Interactive Project for Health Occupation Students

Other topic areas that are covered by sessions include:

• Certification
• Classroom management
• Developing business partnerships
• Mentoring
• NCLB
• Nontraditional programs
• Perkins
• Soft skills
• Special populations
• Teacher induction, recruitment and retention