Teachers inspire Techniques

/in /by

Techniques dedicates its October 2021 digital issue to career and technical education (CTE) professionals like you. Teachers, administrators, counselors and support staff do more than prepare the workforce. Across ACTE divisions and the nation, career and technical education builds a strong foundation of knowledge, experience and employability skills. Yes, CTE educators invest in their students to develop tomorrow’s leaders of industry and education.

Content featured in Techniques this month includes:

A spotlight on postsecondary leadership

In September, Techniques launched a new, digital-exclusive series on fellows in the Postsecondary Leadership Success Program at ACTE – Sponsored by ECMC Foundation. First, meet Tiffanie Rosier, Tachaka Hollins and Tracey D. Cooper. Each week through February, we’ll feature someone new. They are CTE leaders among us. And we asked them to share what steps they thought educators could take to improve equitable access to CTE?

Hear from Tiffanie Rosier, STEM education coordinator at Northern Virginia Community College. She encouraged educators to “take a SWOT analysis approach. Provide stakeholders with the information, activities and resources to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) related to the programming they develop and implement. This activity can help identify strategies for creating more equitable, high-quality CTE programs.”

Learn more about the Postsecondary Leadership Success Program at ACTE – Sponsored by ECMC Foundation.

The program offers a yearlong professional development experience intended to grow the organizational leadership and management skills of postsecondary CTE professionals. Each year, 20 selected fellows work with a dedicated mentor, attend monthly webinars and complete rigorous assignments.

An Arizona success model for growing CTE teachers

Postsecondary education needs to pioneer innovative, even radical, approaches to expand access and improve opportunities for every student. The traditional pathway for higher education has a student enter college upon graduation from high school. Consider, instead, pathways where there are multiple entry/exit points along the way. Stackable credentials maximize opportunities for students to shift seamlessly between the roles of learner and worker throughout their careers.

Meet the writers at ACTE’s CareerTech VISION 2021.

Nicole Hampton and Speranta Klees will present an in-person session — To the Workforce, and Beyond! Nonlinear Pathways for Postsecondary Attainment — on Saturday, Dec. 4.

A collaborative approach to entrepreneurship education

Entrepreneurs find solutions to problems that can improve life for people everywhere. And they bring products and services to their communities. But entrepreneurship is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks an individual can undertake, with no playbook to guarantee success. As Gregory Keele redesigned his entrepreneurship courses, he wanted to simulate the real world in a controlled setting — where failure didn’t result in losing everything, and where success could be embraced and replicated.

Learn more from the writer in his recent webinar.

Gregory Keele and his Virtual Startup Academy team led a webinar, Driving Student Ownership in the Classroom Through Entrepreneurship, Teamwork and Cross-curricular Collaboration, as part of ACTE’s innovations series.

An innovative program engaging students in CTE

The Product Innovation & Design & Architecture pathways at Adolfo Camarillo High School are built on imagination. Whatever is around you is worthy of exploration. Students learn basic to advanced skills, and they gain real-world experience designing for industry. They build robotics props, stagecraft designs, music stands and more — designed to meet the needs of a partner or collaborator. And, through this process, they learn to understand that what they do has an impact on everything.

Learn more from the writer in his recent webinar.

Peter Wachtel led a webinar, Teaching Innovative CTE: Bringing Industry into Your Classroom with Real-world Projects & Skills, as part of ACTE’s innovations series.

Read Techniques

Still to come later in October:

  • Thoughtful signage facilitates engaging, inclusive learning environments
  • Taking Business to School, sponsored by Xello
  • Teachers prep teachers, with support from community partners
  • Meet PLSP-ECMC Foundation fellows from the class of 2021
  • High-quality teachers, high-quality programs and more