Postsecondary CTE Event

Postsecondary CTE Event
September 18-20, 2024
Chicago, Illinois

Registration opens on  January 8, 2024.
Call for proposals opens February 12-May 3, 2024.

What will postsecondary CTE look like in 5 years? 10 years? As postsecondary CTE leaders we must chart the future of postsecondary CTE and ensure that structures, systems, processes, and programming support ALL students and ALL administrators, faculty, and staff. Educators face many challenges as we plan for the future of postsecondary CTE. Some of these challenges include declines in enrollment and funding, inflation, a potential economic recession, firmer mandates, policy to practice gaps, and technological advances. We must prepare for these challenges while creating and embracing changes that lead to equitable access and a stronger postsecondary CTE. We must innovate to survive. Our goal is to create powerful learning environments. This is summit is a call to action!

This event will focus on the following 4 major themes:

  1. Promising Practices & Emerging Technologies: Scaling Opportunity
    Promising programs and emerging technologies leading to systems change in postsecondary CTE will be revealed. We will explore what programming needs to be created to ensure student success. This theme will dissect and reconfigure the current structure of postsecondary CTE and think through ways we can enhance our current systems where possible. Seeking funding for promising practices/programs and ways to replicate and expand these practices will be explored.
  2. Embedding Postsecondary CTE students in a context of support
    Postsecondary CTE cannot support students in every area that impacts student success. Therefore, we are relying on partnerships more and more to support students academically and personally. Therefore, this theme will focus on building, growing, and creating partnerships outside of academia to support student success within academia. Successful and innovative partnerships with postsecondary CTE will be explored as well as envisioning other areas we may need to partner with in the future. Partnerships can include but are not limited to:

    1. Social service agencies
    2. Workforce partnerships
    3. Funding partnership (state, federal, public, and private foundations)
    4. Nonprofit and for-profit organizations and businesses that focus on specific areas
    5. Policy partners
  3. The Future of Teaching and Learning in Postsecondary CTE
    Rethinking how we teach and exploring various teaching methods that include online learning, and micro credentials -learning models will be explored. Immersive learning that can harness technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality to bring topics to life and immerse students in a subject is important. Drawing upon flexible delivery methods, digital technologies and modernized curricula while ensuring sustained support for teachers and communities will be discussed. This theme will also focus on the work being done to address the faculty recruitment and retention challenge.
  4. Data and Data Interpretation: Charting Effectiveness
    Data collection in postsecondary CTE is critical to student success. Unless we collect data and document our efforts, we are unable to analyze or effectively expand our efforts. Collecting and analyzing data allows us to avoid repeating mistakes. Therefore, we need the tools to carefully monitor the impact of our efforts, ensuring that they are equitable. We need to put “data to work” and see how practitioners can use data to advise and guide our efforts. Integrating data systems and systematic challenges with collecting data in CTE will be explored.