From Policy to Practice Designing Career Pathways for ABE ESL Learners.
– [Steve] Welcome, everyone. This is Steve
Coleman. I’m at Manhattan Strategy Group and on behalf of LINCS, we would
like to welcome you to a webinar. The title of the webinar is “From Policy
to Practice: Designing Career Pathways for ABE/ESL Learners.” One thing I
want to remind you of is at the end, we will have a link to a survey. So we
would really appreciate it if you take that survey. It gives us feedback
on the webinar for future use. Okay, now, I’m going to turn it over to
Mike Cruse who will do the introduction to the webinar. Thank you. – [Mike] All right. Thank you, Steve.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar on
Designing Career Pathways for Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language
Learners.
Again, my name is Mike Cruse, I’m the moderator for LINCS Group
Pathways Community of Practice. And I’m joined today by David Rosen who’s
the program manager moderator. We will… We’re fortunate, I’m sorry, to
have a team of esteemed presenters joining us today to discuss this topic at the
federal, state, and local levels. And to begin, we have Judith Alamprese
with Abt Associates, Lauren Walizer with the Center for Law and Social Policy,
Derek Kalchbrenner with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary
Education, and Pat Thomas and Partners from the Marshall Southwest Adult
Education Learning Center in Minnesota.
So we’re delighted to have these
individuals join us. These leaders will be spending the next 60 minutes with us to
talk about these issues and also guide us in our conversation over the next several
days in the LINCS Community of Practice which we invite you to join us as well.
The webinar will be recorded and we will also have slides available at the
conclusion of today’s presentation. So if anyone would like a copy of those,
we’ll be able to send those to you. But our objectives for today will be to
present a vision of career pathways for pre-college adult learners and individuals
with lower English language learning levels. We’ll also review federal
requirements under WIOA Title II and the measurable skill gain indicator and
present examples of Integrated Education and Training and Integrated English
Literacy and Civics Education programs. As well as, finally, explore how one
rural community collaborates to use community-based assessments that meet
local and regional employment needs. So we ask you to use the chatbox to ask
any questions during the presentations and hopefully, we’ll have some time in
the end to answer these questions.
However, again, if we don’t, we encourage
you to join us in the LINCS community to ask those questions and look for answers
to those questions if we are unable to address them today. So without further
delay, I’m going to go ahead and hand the presentation over to our first
presenter, Judith Alamprese. Judith. – [Judith] Thanks, Mike. Good afternoon,
everyone. My presentation this afternoon will address career pathways from the
perspective of a local career pathways system and will provide a framework for
understanding the key services that constitute a local career pathways system.
Highlighted in the presentation are strategies for assessing the level of
current career pathways services in a local ABE program, ideas to consider in
developing strong partnerships to support career pathways, and the conditions that
state and local staff should think about in developing career
pathways for lower-skilled adults. The graphic that you see depicts the key
elements or types of activities that comprise a career pathways system as
identified by the U.
S. Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human
Services. As shown in the graphic, cross-agency partnerships are fundamental
to the key activities of a career pathways system in either the state or local
levels. These activities are working with industry, associations, and employers to
identify growing sectors and labor markets, designing and delivering
education and training programs, securing funding and other resources to
support career pathway services, developing and aligning state or local
policies to support career pathways, and collecting and analyzing data to
measure clients’ performance and to monitor services.
Another key element that has been identified in research on career pathways
is the critical role of public relations in ongoing communication with
stakeholders. That is important in terms of talking about career pathways’
purposes, activities, benefits, and outcomes. So what is a
local career pathways system? ABE program staff have found it useful to
have a vision or a model of a system in order to help them develop career pathways services.
As you can see on the screen, this model, which is based on the
definition of career pathways in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities
An act can be used to guide the development of career pathways in all ABE delivery
systems: local education agencies, community colleges, community-based
organizations, correctional institutions, and other types of organizations
delivering ABE. The model lists the range of potential partners as described in
WIOA. The diverse client populations that can be served, the types of data and
information [inaudible] to be addressed at service intake, and the importance of
conducting some form of career in college awareness early in the program to help
clients set goals and to motivate them to participate in the services that can help
them transition to further education training or employment. The services that
are provided to clients can vary depending on the population of clients being served
and the services can lead either to secondary credential or to post-secondary
participation.
The attainment of education credentials is expected then to lead to an
initial and then subsequent jobs in a career pathway. This model can be
customized to a program’s career pathway activities and can be used in public
relations and communications activities. So when planning career pathways, the first step is to assess the extent to which an ABE program is implementing
activities related to career pathways. One can start by reviewing national
reporting system data to understand the background, characteristics, and
entry-skill levels of clients who were typically served in a program and to
assess whether more targeted recruitment may be needed to reach potential clients who can benefit from career pathways services.
A tool that we adopted under our case, Moving Pathways Forward Project,
is the ABE Career Pathways Survey. The survey can be used by state or local
staff to identify the areas of current career pathways being implemented and
to develop a plan to address gaps in implementation. So the survey is organized
according to the key elements of a career pathways system that we just discussed,
the six areas on the chart, and then the additional area of conduct public
relations and ongoing communications. Each element has a series of items of
activities that relate to the element. So this is a screenshot from the survey
and for example, for the key element, provide education and training services,
there is a list of activities including the three that are on the slide. The
program staff is to rate the program’s progress in completing each activity in
terms of whether the activity is underway, being planned, or has not been addressed
yet. For the activities that are underway, program staff is asked to provide a brief
description of the types of activities being conducted for each element. The
survey can provide local program staff with benchmarks for career pathways
services and a process for monitoring their progress in carrying out key
services.
At the state level, the state could administer this survey to all
ABE providers and develop a state portrait of career pathways implementation,
identifying the programs in need of technical assistance, and identifying
potential promising practices in career pathways that can be further tested. The
information for accessing this survey is presented at the end of this presentation.
Critical to implementing career pathways is a strong partnership between and
within agencies and organizations. Most career pathways services require
that ABE providers connect to other organizations and departments within their
organization to provide the range of services that are required by a career
pathways system. An important process is developing effective partnerships to
establish really trust in the sense that each partner is being rewarded for their
participation in the partnership.
Explicit benefits to each partner,
the more explicit they are, the better the partners will feel
motivated to participate. Strong partnerships, in turn, can help ABE
leverage the expertise and the resources they need to carry out, you know, the full
range of resources they need for ABE career pathways. My last
the point concerns strategies for developing career pathways for
lower-skilled adults and there are two levels to think about. At the local level,
ABE leaders and staff can identify training programs that do not require a
secondary credential so that clients who are working toward a secondary
the credential can begin or, you know, enter these training programs. The ABE
staff can also consider providing a pre-bridge or a bridge program to
facilitate lower-level learners’ participation in training or they can
negotiate dual enrollment so that learners can simultaneously work on secondary
credentialing while they are participating in some type of further…for secondary
training or training courses. At the state level, state leaders have an
opportunity to really play an important role in reaching out to various types of
organizations and associations to look at opportunities for pilot testing, models
that would be advantageous for lower-level clients, and working with the higher
education partners to facilitate local opportunities.
The state’s role is very
helpful in facilitating what local ABE programs are expected to do in
implementing career pathways. I have two resources listed that we
produced under the Moving Pathways Forward Project that may be of help to states and
local programs and the provider survey is in the career pathways planner there.
So I want to thank you for your time today and our next presenter is Lauren Walizer
from the Center for Law and Social Policy. – [Lauren] Thank you, Judith. Hi,
everyone, good afternoon. I am Lauren Walizer. As she mentioned, I’m responsible
for CLASP’s federal policy work and post-secondary education and training,
and from time to time, that has my work crossing over into adult education and
work course training issues like those that we’re talking about today. I will be
speaking about state and local responsibilities to design and implement
career pathways, talk about what does that phrase, “career pathways,” mean,
what does it look like in practice, and then I’ll touch on the outcome
measures that adult educators need to know under WIOA.
So the responsibilities of state leadership under WIOA is the requirement
to align with core partners to carry out the state’s WIOA strategic plans,
and that includes career pathways.
Career pathways are explicitly highlighted
in the language and as you can see, highlighted on the slide as an activity
that states must undertake to get those who can be served by adult education and
literacy programs into the employment and training they need to be successful in the
workforce. So this is why you may have come across career pathways in your state
plans or in other spaces in the WIOA context. State leadership must
be thinking about this issue. So what about the local level? The local
boards are mandated…you can see on the screen the word “shall,” which means
they’re mandated to take the lead and work with secondary and post-secondary
educators to design and implement career pathways.
They’re also required to convene
local partners on the board and there’s a mandate for the local [inaudible] two
persons to be included on that board. So it’s important for that person if you
are that person or you know who that person is, it’s important for them to be
an advocate for adult education programs generally, but also specifically, as
career pathways are being developed, to share your voice about the programs
that you know will be supported by the population. So what does
career pathways mean? It’s a term that we’ve heard used in many
different ways.
Some people use it to mean one thing or another. It is defined in
federal law in both WIOA and the Higher Education Act. This is the definition that
education and workforce development operates under and is the one that I mean
when I’ve been talking about career pathways for the last two minutes. The
federal definition is very comprehensive and it’s aspirational in the sense that
it’s trying to push states and local areas, all these different stakeholders,
into alignment across adult education, post-secondary education, career services,
human services, apprenticeships, all getting them to work together to
provide that high-quality education and training. So the career pathway is a
seven-part definition. These are the first three parts. It must align with
the skill needs of industries. And align does not mean it’s a hot job.
You know, if your local area needs RNs, you can’t develop a career pathway
that starts with a registered nurse. Especially if you have a
population with a lot of barriers or, you know, individuals who don’t speak
English, then you need to have accessible credentials at a lower level where
an individual can enter and then work up to an RN.
Second, it must prepare an
individual for both secondary and post-secondary. So secondary can mean
career and technical education or high school equivalency or a number of things.
A secondary also has many meanings. It can mean, you know, college, “real’
higher education. It can mean apprenticeship. It can mean industry like
nurse’s credentials or many other things. And it also must provide
education and career planning. So the next two parts of the definition
are really the heart of what makes career pathways so innovative. What are these?
Says that education must be offered concurrently and contextually with the
workforce preparation activities and training. So this is the [inaudible],
Integrated Education and Training model, adult literacy, and workforce prep, and
workforce training all running together, balanced, and all working toward the same
set of outcomes. So an example of this model, as you probably know, is
Washington 5X Model, but there are many other forms that IET models can take, and
I’ll talk about IET again in a second. And then it also must organize
these activities for acceleration.
And this is the point of
misunderstanding that we’ve had before. The intention of this is that the student
completes the pathway, completes these three things, the education, the
training, and the workforce prep, in a shorter time when they complete them
together than if they were to do them separately. And the last
two are really, the student has to be able to get both the secondary
diploma and the post-secondary credential that must be offered as part of a pathway.
And then also, it’s targeting both people who are entering an occupation or
advancing within it. So you can be serving people like out-of-school youths who are
not involved in any occupation at all currently or you can be working with
upskilling people in the contingent workforce or incumbent worker training
getting them to advance within that occupation that they already are employed.
So this is sort of when I talked about IET.
These is the three components and how
they all fit in together in a balanced way into the idea of Integrated Education and
Training. So I would just want to go through again the adult education and
literacy stream. It’s about building essential foundational skills in
reading, math, English language, all these different types of foundational
skills. It also provides soft skills needed for employment like digital
skills, soft management skills, and teamwork through the workforce
preparation stream. And then it finally delivers occupational training with value
in the labor market like incumbent worker training or traditional job through that
workforce training stream, and they are all offered together at the
same time. And so, the citations on the slides are, if you refer to them, you can
see the full list of activities that are included under those definitions.
I encourage you to look them up because they’re very comprehensive and they are
many more than what I have listed today. So what does a career pathway look like
that would serve individuals with limited English currently? This one is from the
International Institute of Minnesota, which works with well literate Somali refugees.
They also had limited educational background when they came to Minnesota.
They start off at the entry-level, you see the entry-level column. They
receive hotel housekeeping training. That’s a six-week, 100-hour course that
provides them with beginning ESL, teaching them housekeeping skills and soft
skills and customer service skills and that enables them to get a job as
a housekeeper at $10.20 an hour. And then, they also provide [inaudible]
time. They critically provide supportive services to these students like learning
how to operate on public transportation, learning how to enroll their children in
school, learning how to furnish their apartment, giving them, you know,
furnishing for their apartment.
So really important things to get
them settled in the community. So then, if the students choose to
continue to advance in the career pathway, they then can receive supervisor training
and this is also a six-week training. They give them more ESL, more
industry-specific English skills, learning how to get feedback and supervise
employees, and that lets them get a job as an inspector or a supervisor that pays $12
to $15 an hour. And then if they continue up to the college level, they can enroll in a
three-week class. That’s a bridge class that provides them college navigation
services in reading and writing and math skills that they’ll need to succeed in
college. And then to continue on their [inaudible] certificate, they have to
complete 20 credits at the local community college where they learn college writing
and technological fluency and other things that help them become either a supervisor
or an assistant executive housekeeper.
So the outcome for the students, you can
see coming in 50% of the students [inaudible], a third of students
had young children at home, and nearly 20% were homeless or at
immediate risk of becoming homeless, and almost all of them were 200% below
the poverty line at the time of enrollment. But you can see once they were enrolled,
the IET model really worked the way that you would hope it would. The students
were able to advance in their careers. There was a wage progression even
though the jobs were not high paying, there is wage progression.
And 10
graduates were promoted and 5 graduates are still continuing their
educational journey. So about the outcomes measured. So
under WIOA, states must report on six primary indicators of performance and
they’re mainly focused on participant outcomes like earnings after exit and
employment after exit, but one of the indicators is measurable skill gain
and this is the one indicator that’s not exit-based. It’s about measuring a
student’s progress. So adult educators are probably familiar with educational
functioning level gain, EFL gain, that orange square at the middle. So be
aware that this is not a term that exists in WIOA, this is like an FYI. Many think
that EFL can only be measured via pre and post-tests, but there are also two
other ways that it can be measured, through either the completion of Carnegie
Units or a student’s exit from a program and entry into post-secondary education
which can include developmental education.
But I wanted to mention the other ways
that measurable skill gain can be indicated other than EFL gain. So that’s
through a secondary diploma or equivalent, through secondary or post-secondary
transcript. So that, at the secondary level, that’s the transcript for one
semester, and the post-secondary level is that with 12 hours per semester for a
full-time student or 12 hours over two completed semesters of post-secondary
student. The progress toward milestones really means adult education working with
an employer to determine a training program, what it should encompass,
setting milestones for the student, and then determining with the employer
whether the student is meeting that progress along the way.
And then the
passage of an exam is a trade-related benchmark about whether the student is
attaining their technical or occupational skills. So for instance, it’s [inaudible]
completing and passing a TDL exam. So it’s important for adult educators
to know the NRS does not track the transcript, which is kind of the blue
box, or the progress toward milestones, which is the gray box, but WIOA quarterly
reporting does require reporting on all of those elements from measurable skill
gain. So now, I’m going to pass it over to Derek. – Derek, are you on mute? – [Derek] Sorry about that, everyone.
I was on mute. I’m back now. Thank you very much, Lauren. I appreciate
that. I am going to start by explaining what career pathways look like in the
department and then how it looks in the state. In the department, we have career
pathways for both K through 12 and adult students. I’m going to spend my time
talking about adult education career pathways which are so great. We’ve
got the slide on the screen, which is the lavender bar on this chart,
but if you’re interested in the others, you can go to the website and get
information on those other three tracks.
Each of our career pathway tracks must
include these six components that are on the left side of the screen to some
degree. Career advising supports students to complete career plans that identify
skills, explores career opportunities, and establishes the path to family
self-sustaining employment. Career advising also helps students with
obstacles to help complete their plans. Labor market information. All pathways
have to be justified with labor market information related to employer
demand and career opportunities. Integrated instruction, in this component,
students participate in carefully designed sequences of integrated, rigorous
instructional courses relevant to their pathway, including both academic and
technical subjects, and I’ll talk more about that in a few slides. Work-based
learning, and in this component, students participate in structured
workforce preparation activities and work-based learning experiences.
And finally, credential preparation. The pathway must enable students to
make progress for the attainment of an industry-recognized credential or
college credits toward a certificate, associate’s, or bachelor’s degree.
Now, in Massachusetts, career pathways operate on four levels: state, region,
local, and program.
At the state level, our state workforce board develops broad
strategies that guide and support the use of career pathways in regional
workforce development areas. In 2016, Massachusetts submitted its WIOA combined
state plan to meet the WIOA requirements for state workforce development programs.
The state plan reflects the goals and vision for the public workforce system in
Massachusetts which calls for a coordinated cross-system service delivery
that treats the job seeker as a shared customer across all state agencies and
supports workforce development as established through a state-wide
memorandum of understanding. Then in our state’s seven local workforce regions,
partners align workforce development activities and available resources with
larger regional economic development need to provide coordinated and efficient
services to both job seekers and businesses. Then using the state MOU as a
model, the 16 workforce development boards guide the development of MOUs in their
areas.
Each MOU must articulate the local area’s plan for meeting WIOA
requirements including designing, implementing, and managing career
pathways. Local workforce development boards also convene workforce partners,
including adult education providers, one-stop career centers, vocational
rehab, and other stakeholder agencies, to coordinate services responsive to the
needs of their local economies. These collaborations identify emerging
industries and develop the career pathways or routes for the local talent to obtain
the skills and credentials necessary to obtain occupations within those
industries.
And then finally, adult education programs design, implement,
and provide the actual career pathways services that lead to employment in those
industries. And in a few slides, I’ll give you some local examples of adult
education and career pathways programs. Now, I’ll talk about the different types
of adult education career pathways services we have at the state. In addition
to providing the necessary academic instruction and preparation of shared
customers and collaborating with local workforce partners on career pathways,
adult education programs can offer a range of career pathways services, including
workforce preparation and career exploration activities, bridge classes,
integrated education and training services, and integrated English
literacy and civics education services. So both workforce preparation activities
and career exploration activities can be carried out by all adult education
providers with all students.
These activities can also be integrated
into adult education classes or in a series of workshops, placed strategically
throughout the program of study. These activities can also be done in
collaboration with workforce partners such as local workforce development
boards, one-stop career centers, or area employers. Of course, the delivery
of these activities will need to be differentiated on levels of the students,
with lesson plans for beginning students looking different from advanced
students, but we at the state department, give our programs the flexibility to
deliver these activities based on the needs of their students.
Bridge classes… Excuse me. Bridge classes are typically offered to
advanced ABE and ESL students. These services are provided to students to
have completed an adult education program of study at an adult education program,
but may still need some additional academic preparation before enrolling in a
post-secondary program.
So these services can include things like ACCUPLACER
preparation, advanced writing and math instruction, college navigation
instruction, in other words, how to navigate a post-secondary education
an institution with its myriad of department policies, procedures, and other
activities to help students transition from adult education to a post-secondary
program. We also have transitioned to community college services which
are similar to bridge services, but unlike the bridge services, which, in
Massachusetts, are typically delivered at an adult education program, the transition
services are actually delivered at the community college. So these are services
for students who are ready for college, but for at least a semester, would benefit
from some intensive advising and support services.
We have transition programs in
10 of our community colleges here in Massachusetts and the transition
students are together as a cohort. The transition program offering vary from
campus to campus, but we do require what we call a College for Success course
for all students. And that course is essentially a college navigation class
that also includes college reading, writing, and research lessons, all things
to equip students with the skills needed to be successful in their college classes.
Students also have the opportunity to develop their reading, writing, and math
skills in order to place outcomes or advance them along the sequence of
developmental courses that they need to take as measured on the ACCUPLACER.
Intensive advising and support services are also in place so that the [inaudible]
students in each program have assistance with navigating all the
different college requirements.
And so, all of the students in these
programs get at least one credit-bearing degree course, help with eliminating
developmental courses, and advising for one semester and none of which they have
to pay for as these programs are funded through the department with
matching [inaudible] from the college. And the idea, of course, is to increase
persistence by providing a foundation of courses and advising that will lead
more students to finish their degrees. Now, Integrated Education and Training
programs, I think Lauren covered the components of IET, so I won’t spend time
on those components, but you see them here on the screen. In Massachusetts, programs
have the option of applying to provide IET services.
We are currently running IET
pilots that I’ll discuss in a few slides. These services are collaborations among
local workforce development boards, adult education providers, career vocational-technical education programs, post-secondary and training providers,
employers, and other local stakeholders. These services integrate adult education
concurrently and contextually with workforce preparation and workforce
training for occupations in high-demand industries that allow students
to attain economic self-sufficiency. IET services must be aligned
with local career pathways and include support services
such as career counseling, job placements, and retention services.
And upon completion, students must have earned at least one or more
industry-recognized credentials. In Massachusetts, we strongly encourage our
adult education providers to partner with our K through 12 vocational-technical
education schools. In these partnerships, the adult education programs make use of
the school’s vocational facilities: the shops, the labs, the clinical areas, after
school and evening on Saturdays as well as drawing on the faculty expertise. And
these schools often also have the technical curricula that adult education
programs can modify to meet the needs of their students.
Here in Massachusetts,
we have found K through 12 very open to partnerships with adult
education and we currently have about 10 such partnerships right now. Some of our
schools actually actively market the program to the parents of their schools’ children.
The schools see these programs as an opportunity to broaden their mission by
offering programs for parents as well as children. Integrated English Literacy and
Civics Education, these services enable English language learners to achieve
competency in the English language and acquire the skills needed to function
effectively as parents, workers, and citizens in the United States. These
services must include instruction literacy and English language acquisition and
instruction on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and civics
participation. And under WIOA Section 243, these services must be delivered in
combination with an IET program as described earlier. Now, I’ll talk
about our state’s IELC/IET pilots. In FY 2016, Massachusetts
funded three such pilots and in FY 2017, we added 13 more. We have pilots in
community-based organizations, in public schools, community colleges, and
one based in a correctional facility. The requirements for the pilots included
offering adult education and literacy activities concurrently and contextually
with workforce preparation activities and training for occupations in local
high-demand industries.
Programs had to propose accelerated models, ones in which
students would be in education and training classes at the same time.
Collaboration with local workforce partners and one-stop career centers
to help align the programming, connect to employers, overcome barriers,
and connect with employment opportunities were also requirements. Programs also had
to partner with one or more employers. And the role of the employers was to
support program development and evaluation and also to provide input into
the curriculum and program design to ensure that the training was preparing
students for jobs in the industry. And student attainment of one or more
industry-recognized credentials was also a requirement. Now, I’ll
highlight two of our pilots. There are abstracts of all 16 of our
pilots on our website and there’s a link to those abstracts in this presentation,
but I’ll just talk about two of them here.
Cambridge Community Learning Center is a
community-based organization. The department, we’ve been funding their Home
Health Aide Certified Nursing Assistant Program for a little over a year now. The partnership consists of the
CLC Lead Health Education Program, the Academy for Health Care
Training, which is the training provider partner, the Rindge School of Technical
Arts, which is a high school in Cambridge, and the Cambridge Employment
Program [inaudible] employers. The CLC, the Community Learning Center, provides
the contextualized ESOL and math instruction while the Academy of Career
Training provides the HHA and CNA instruction. The Cambridge Community
Learning Center coordinates with the ESOL and training instructors at the academy to
integrate the curriculum into weekly lessons.
The academy instructors are
Department of Public Health and the addition of professional licensure approved to
deliver HHA, CNA instruction. The Rindge School, the Cambridge Rindge
School, they provide the training space, so their clinical area and their faculty
also shared curricula and other resources. Communication instruction includes
things like giving directions, asking for clarification, communication at
the workplace, and relating incidents and observations. Students learn medical
terminology and basic report writing, things like reports, forms, and charts.
Math instruction includes arithmetic, measuring temperature, recording time,
metric conversions. And in the training component, students learn basic
patient care, bathing, dressing, undressing, safe transfers,
vital signs, diets, infection control, respecting patient’s rights. Civics
education lessons include levels of government and citizenship and
other civic participation activities.
In addition, the City of Cambridge Employment
Program Job Developer cultivates existing and develops new relationships with health
care employers and providers and helps students with employment assistance. And
the clinical hours for the program are done at one of the employer partner sites.
And there are always new employers being added to this particular partnership, but
I’ve listed three of them here on this slide. The next program
I’m going to highlight is the Webster Public Schools Advanced
Manufacturing Program.
In this case, Webster Public Schools Adult Education
Center, they provide contextualized high-set instruction. So this program
is for native English speakers. Here, we need to earn a high school
credential. And they’re partnering with one of our high schools, Bay Path Regional
Vocational Technical High School. They provide the space and also the
technical training in its manufacturing shops. The collaboration uses a local
curriculum. It’s the Manufacturing Advancement Center Workforce Innovation
Collaborative or MACWIC curriculum.
The link to it is here on this slide.
This is the basis for instruction. This is a five-level competency-based
a curriculum that is designed to be stackable and includes multiple points of
entry and re-entry. The students start off with, in this program, while they’re
working on their high set, what they call Level 1. And Level 1 modules include
shop math, blueprint reading, metrology, and quality inspection, work
readiness, and safety.
And so, hands-on instruction includes working on
both manual and computerized machines located at Bay Path. An adult education
teacher and adviser are present during classes to assist adapt the students with
academic progress in the program. We have another program in the state of
Webster Public Schools is also offering an Advanced Manufacturing Program
for English language learners and they are also using the MACWIC curriculum. In
addition to this particular program, in addition to the Level 1 certification,
these students can also earn up to 11 National Institute for Metalworking, NIMS,
credentials including materials and safety, job planning, benchwork
and layout, drill press skills, and several other NIMS credentials that
you can read about it on our website.
So that brings me to the end of my
presentation. Thank you very much for listening and I’m pleased to introduce Pat
Thomas of the Marshall Southwest Adult Education Learning Center. – [Pat] Thank you, Derek. In this segment,
we’ll be sharing a successful career pathway model on our local level from
Southwest Minnesota. Throughout this segment, you will hear four different
voices. We do this with the intent of highlighting the fact that our success has
come as a result of real collaborations from multiple partners that are all
founded in the wheel of legislation.
In our model, our workforce
center, our adult basic education, the community college, and our public
schools join forces under the philosophy of embracing real collaboration. Our
collaboration began as a relationship approach and has grown into an
organization’s systemic collaboration model. Our collaboration focuses on the
student’s success and our employers assist us in driving our training content. – [Woman 1] The Minnesota ABE model
focuses on transition. Our goal is to assist students in transitioning to the
next level with the integration of basic skills, digital literacy, and professional
soft skills. One can find more information on this model at the link given on this
slide. Our ACES/TIF framework, which was developed by Minnesota ABE,
embed successful life work skills at every level of the ABE and ESL instruction. It’s
used as part of Minnesota’s overall ABE standards along with CCRS and
[inaudible] drives our contents. – [Woman 2] Southwest Minnesota is a
geographically large rural region in our state. It is twice the geographic size
of the state of Massachusetts. Just for a point of reference, we have 4.3
times more livestock than people. For the purposes of this presentation, we
will be showcasing our CNA Career Pathway Training.
Our CNA training is one example
of several we provide that reflect the needs of our regional employers. This slide shows visually
our various partners, both public and private
partners, who make our training successful. We work together to maximize
our resources to support our students in a very intentional manner. – When we’re saying collaboration,
we mean a real form of collaboration where a business, as usual,
has taken on a very different look than before we joined forces.
Our focus
is on the students’ success. We meet the students where they are based
on their interests, their career focus, their comprehension, and digital literacy
skills. And then upon successful completion, successfully completing the
training, the students earn transcribable credits leading to industry
certification and their CNA licensure. Our high school students also earn dual
credit toward their high school diploma. Typically, the students in our program
increase their literacy and secure employment shortly after completion. – [Woman 3] A role that is crucial to our
success is the navigator that comes out of the workforce system. The navigator works
directly with the training participants to determine training needs, identify
potential resources to address barriers, and assist with employability skills and
career pathway achievement.
Most recently, our navigator role has
encompassed establishing work experiences and on-the-job training opportunities to
benefit both the training participants and local employers. We would encourage other
areas developing career pathway training to check out these resources at
your local one-stop job centers. – Here, we have listed the various
places we find our students. Probably, the most effective marketing
tool we have has been word of mouth from past students who’ve gone through our
program. Our employers, and most recently, the incorporation of social media have
also been effective marketing methods. We recognize that this webinar
is focused on the adult learner, but we would like to share how we have
successfully partnered with our local high schools to provide training for adults
and youths together. This has contributed to our ability to provide training in a
rural area in our current job market. We believe this has merit to
consider in any location, rural or urban.
The co-mingling of adults and youths
together may be a new concept for many to consider, but we find providing the
training in this manner has created multiple positive outcomes. Cost
efficiency or training incurs the same cost whether it is full to capacity or
not. Our role model reflects the actual multi-generational workforce as clients
will enter. Both youths and adults state they benefit and appreciate the mix of
ages. The youths feel they act more maturely in the presence of adult
learners. The adults feel like it is a more academic setting with the youths
present. Both groups appreciate the perspective that the other brings to the
classroom. Adults appreciate the hope the youth bring and the youth appreciate the
maturity and life experience the adults bring. The CNA program has a built-in
background check. We have now included that for adults entering the schools for
our other pieces of training. The mix of generations and motivations of our
students create opportunities for our clientele in the training to strive
higher and further than they maybe originally envisioned for themselves.
Because we maximize the capacity of each training from our various clientele, we are able to offer more variety of training with greater cost efficiency.
This has
proven to be an effective model to break the cycle of poverty in our area. – Another unique aspect of our CNA career
pathway training is our use of an independent online version of a bridge
rather than a [inaudible] bridge. This format allows us to engage the
learner at the point they want to participate in our CNA training. It also
provides an indicator to us as to which individuals are needed to follow through
with the CNA training as we can see the amount of time they’re willing to invest
in completing the activities listed in this format. This format is also an
example of using resources within our partnership to benefit the students. More
information on how we implement this can be seen on the southwestabe.org website.
For individuals who do not attain our cut score of 230 CASAS, we utilize an online
reading curriculum, reading skills for health care workers, we have recently
created. This curriculum can be also found on our website.
It is free and available
for any program to use with their learners. – A typical class in our CNA pathway
training lasts about two months. The class schedule is aligned with
the public school day schedule. The college and the ABE instructors
deliver integrated instructions on our assigned alternating days. The ABE
instructors support teaching done by the college instructor in addition to offering
a variety of activities that employers have identified as a benefit
to their future employees. – Activities facilitated by the ABE
instructors identified by our employers are listed here. Each activity is one our
employers feel add value to these future employees. Another example of an activity
we will be introducing is bringing into the classroom a person who uses CNA
services and/or their family members to stick to their perspective and impact on
aspects of their own or loved ones care. This slide showcases the work experience
options our navigator sets up for students as it is appropriate.
Students
have the ability, through this experience, to become acclimated to the culture and
staff of the facility in which they want to find employment. Again, we would
encourage others to find out more about this option through your
one-stop job centers. – Sustainability has always been a major
concern to career pathway work. A key factor in our success is being able
to braid funding from multiple revenue streams through our various agencies.
Another avenue we have thought and been successful at is receiving employer
contributions. This career pathway training is one we are all invested in. All
partners contribute to making the career pathway training happen. All of our
agencies work collaboratively to make this program successful. – Under the topic of sustainability, we
have worked actively with our elected officials at the legislature. This past
year, together, we successfully passed into law, the ability for our ABE programs
to be reimbursed back for the hard cost of tuition, test out fee, book fee, and
[inaudible] up to 30% of that total cost for ABE services.
As an individual, we financially
supported to attain their CNA if successfully employed at a nursing
home for 90 days. Again, there is more information on this new Minnesota law that
can be found on our Southwest ABE website. – To wrap up this segment, we thank you
for your time and your interest in our career pathway model. Our contact
information is provided for any of you interested in learning more information
about our model. We encourage you to visit the Southwest ABE website that’s provided
here which is full of more details. We hope that you have found at least one
idea you may want to pursue in your career pathway training. Please
feel free to contact us. We’ll turn it back to Michael to
wrap up the webinar. Thank you. – [David] Actually, it’s David, and thank
you very much. These have been terrific presentations representing lots of
useful information at all levels.
I’d like to say more, but we are running
out of time, so I just want to call your attention to three things. One is you will
be getting a follow-up survey from LINCS and we do hope that you will complete
that. The second is, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the chat area if you’d
like to get a copy of the slides, email Mike Cruse or me and we’ll send them
right out to you. The recording takes a little more time, probably several weeks.
And I think… And Steve Coleman, you could clarify that. I think people who
are registered for the webinar will get a notice when that’s available as a YouTube
video on the LINCS YouTube channel. – Yeah, actually, the way it works…
Oh, can I just jump in here, David? – Yeah, sure. Go ahead. – The way it works is since this is open
enrollment, we will not be sending anything out announcing the availability
of the presentation.
But what will happen, it will be on the YouTube channel, so you
can check on LINCS. It usually takes…it can take a month or two. So it
can take a while. In the meantime, as David said if you email to either
David or Mike can send you the PowerPoint presentation. One other thing
quickly, I’m going to copy and paste the survey link into the chatbox and we would
very much appreciate your taking that survey.
It provides valuable
feedback. So if you click on that, that will take you to the survey. But you
have to click on that to get to the survey. – Oh, I see. So people don’t automatically
get it because they’re not registered. Oh, okay, got it.
– Yeah. – So one last thing, very important, many
of the questions that were raised, many of the ideas that you’d like to
explore in more detail, you will have an opportunity to do beginning
tonight and for the next three days. To do that, you need to be a registered
member of LINCS which you can do by going to the LINCS website which is
lincs.ed.gov. And you can… Then once you are registered, you will want to join
either or both of these two groups: Career Pathways or Program Management. The
discussion will be taking place in both of those groups. So you don’t need to join
both, you could just join one if you wish. So thank you all. Thank you very much to
our presenters today and to many of you who have been very active in the chat
area.
Please let Mike or me know if you’d like a copy of the slide deck,
we’ll send that right out to you. – Yeah, thank you very much to the
presenters. That is it as far as I’m concerned. Any presenters have
anything else they want to add? So again, thank you, participants. You’ve
had some great inputs and follow up with those discussion groups. – Bye, everybody. – Bye. – Bye, bye..
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