Blogs
Law Enforcement Class in a Rural Context – Culture and the Military
Before I dive into culture, I do want to focus on the involvement with our local military recruiters. From the beginning, I wanted to have a class where the local recruiters could speak frankly with students who were interested in the military. In our environment, a JROTC program probably wouldn’t...
Fostering Creativity in Career and Technical Education
To foster an environment of creativity and learning, it is important to start by forming meaningful and supportive relationships with students and the teams we work with on a daily basis. When you ask people to reflect on their most profound moment of discovery or learning, their responses include a...
The Silver Lining of a COVID-19 Learning Environment
There is no question this has been a school year filled with challenges we never thought we would have to deal with in our careers in education. CTE is so much different from academic classes where a textbook may be the only piece of equipment students need to successfully complete the course. CTE i...
Building my Own Fellowship
Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to participate in a number of leadership experiences, cohorts, and fellows’ programs. Each one provided me with a diverse community to connect with, and unique perspective from that organization. As I entered the ACTE New Fellows program, I refle...
When Life Seems Out of Control
As CTE educators, whether your area of responsibility is within a classroom, or at an administrator level, this past year has definitely been a challenge. Along with the changes this year has brought, there have been periods, that I believe we could all admit, which seem as though we have lost cont...
Work-Based Learning During Hybrid Instruction
Consolidated High School District (CHSD) 230 had challenges like many school districts had in Illinois that were either developing or already offering strong work-based learning opportunities for its students. CHSD 230 hadn’t even had one complete year of their new initiative called D230 Works w...
Postsecondary Success
When I was in high school, I was told that successful career paths were either by going to college, or… really, just by going to college. Sure I had a friend with a military appointment, and a few others who were going into the service, but the options were pretty much college, or.... When I sta...
Successful ways to support our CTE students
Supporting our students, particularly ones in underserved populations can be done in many big and small ways. I am going to share three ways that you can make a significant impact on leading students towards CTE success.
It is amazing how far a simple smile or encouraging note or message can go...
Purpose driven CTE.
Helping people uncover their purpose, giving them a sense of why they are here, and how to live a life of significance, should be a part of every CTE students journey. We tend to use passion and purpose interchangeably, but our passion is the fuel that keeps us going as we live into our purpose, a...
Why do you think it is important to continue Professional Development throughout your career?
Have you ever worked for a company that didn’t offer professional development? I’ve worked for multiple school districts and for private businesses throughout my career. The one thing they all had in common were professional development. All employers provide professional development but t...