2024 CTE Works! Summit

With Perkins funding eligible for use down to the 5th grade, it can be challenging to find approved ways to work with middle schoolers. This session will focus on how the Rochester/ZED Consortium has designed and successfully implemented a Middle School Career Camp for grades 6 and 7 for CTE career exploration. We will share our experiences and the key elements, including industry partnerships, that have contributed to the success of our camp.

This presentation is designed to get you thinking about how you can use Perkins funding to work with middle schoolers. It aims to help you understand the importance of a middle school program, such as a career camp, and how you can remove barriers to participation and offer it at little to no cost for families.

You will hear from three Perkins Coordinators who are successfully running a free middle school career camp heading into its third year. You will see that feedback from families, students and staff has been overwhelmingly positive with many comments asking for more days to be offered, increasing the number of hours, and welcoming returning students and staff.

See an example of a timeline for planning a summer career camp, including marketing six months prior and month-to-month tasks up to the week of and individual days of the camp. You will also receive resources, tools, and tips on what has worked and what has not to make our program sustainable and successful. Examples of activities and the role of the teachers will also be shared. Additionally, you will hear stories and examples of our engaging partners. You will learn about the location, and why we have utilized the facilities at Rochester Community and Technical College.

Learn how the camp evolved from year one to year two, from gaining a better understanding of student needs and interests. Middle school students thrive with hands-on experiences and learning activities.

Hear how we decided which pathways to provide and their relevance to our CLNA, and our region, and why running such a camp can benefit the high school CTE program. Additional topics will include teacher incentives for working in the summer, and the amount of staff and industry partners needed to operate such a program. There will be an opportunity for questions and group sharing of experiences with Perkins funded middle school programming.

After this session, you will be able to:

1. Understand the importance of middle school programs and how they can serve as feeders for high school CTE programs. 
2. Build business relationships to support an engaging camp.
3. Gain knowledge of the experiences used to run a successful camps. 

Two work-based learning systems in Minnesota participated in Phase 2 of the US Department of Education Career Z Challenge. This session will focus on key take aways from several months of learning and collaboration with other work-based learning programs across the nation.

Curious about the Career Z Challenge? Join us for an insightful session featuring the two Minnesota programs that advanced to Phase II, along with their Cohort Lead. Discover why they chose to participate in this U.S. Department of Education initiative and their key take-aways from the experience. By collaborating monthly with programs nationwide, Career Z Challenge participants exchanged best practices, gained insights from inspiring speakers, and tackled their most difficult work-based learning challenges together. These programs continue to integrate what they learned in expanding their work-based learning ecosystems to benefit students, education systems, and local employers. There's still time to get involved—you can join the Career Z Challenge community online! Don't miss this opportunity to hear directly from Minnesota participants about their experiences and key takeaways.

After this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the motivations behind joining the Career Z Challenge and the format of the Challenge.
• Explore the collaborative practices and insights gained through the Career Z Challenge.
• Discuss direct application of knowledge from the Challenge being implemented to expand work-based learning ecosystems"

This presentation reviews Sourcewell’s cohort model approach to supporting career and college readiness programming in Minnesota’s Region 5 schools. We’ll explore two common questions within high school career readiness programming: “How can schools create equitable opportunities for students and where should we prioritize our time to maximize impact?” Specifically, schoolwide course mapping, engagement of local workforce, and data-informed action planning.

Sourcewell is a service cooperative created by the Minnesota legislature as a local unit of government and is governed by local elected municipal officials and school board members. Central to Sourcwell’s mission is its Education Solutions arm which works closely with Region 5 school districts. The career pathways program, now in its 4th year, is a cohort-based support with 8 career pathways specialists who visit a combined 18 high schools weekly throughout the school year to support administrators, teachers, and counselors achieve their career and college readiness goals.

The School Superintendents Association’s (AASA) “Redefining Ready!” is a research-based metrics program that tracks and aligns the ongoing work high school’s implement to better prepare students for post-secondary opportunities.1 This session will share how regional programming, guided by Redefining Ready!, utilizes SchooLinks, data protocols, and coursework design supports school partners in their work towards equitable progress in career and college readiness.

In this session, Sourcewell consultants will provide an overview of how to leverage SchooLinks to engage students in career and college exploration. The development of meaningful student portfolios (Personal Learning Plans), Course Planner features, and Experience Tracker data analysis will be shared. Additionally, the SchooLinks platform will highlight the process for efficiently engaging business connections.

School Districts participating in the cohort explore and share their career readiness impact data to create a community of transparency and accountability. The Redefining Readiness metrics serve as “North Stars”. The data protocol section will address how to orient schools in the beginning of the school year towards data goals, how data informs early school year actions, and the conversations and troubleshooting needed for continuous improvement. Closing out, communication strategies and our year-end data protocol will be shared with the group.

Lastly, this presentation highlights the ways the cohort supports schools to creatively reconfigure high school pathway course offerings. This includes opportunities through Youth Skills Training to provide coursework opportunities in both Healthcare and Agriculture through a collaborative, multi-district effort. Integration of the core subject areas within each pathway will be addressed.

The Career Pathways Program and the cohort of school professionals work closely together throughout a school year to share best practices, celebrate accomplishments, and increase the opportunities available to Region 5 students. Pivotal in this work is the deployment of SchooLinks, collaboration on coursework design and schedule, and accountability through reliable career and college readiness data. The cohort model allows schools to share methods and lessons learned with the belief that shared engagement leads to continuous improvement and growth.

1 Redefining Ready. (2024). National college and career readiness indicators. Redefining Ready. Retrieved from https://www.redefiningready.org/career-ready

You'll learn:

• How to get creative with the master schedule to provide more opportunities for students
• Ideas for how to maximize the use of SchooLinks in your district
• Strategies for data collaboration and examination  

Please bring your device to this interactive session.

This session provides CTE educators with an introduction to AI and its applications in the classroom. Participants will learn what AI is, explore real-world examples, and reflect on meaningful ways to integrate it within their unique teaching contexts. The session emphasizes the importance of purpose-driven AI use, engaging teachers and communities in the process to create ethical, inclusive environments. Through guided discussions and hands-on activities, educators will begin developing personalized AI implementation plans. By the end, they’ll be equipped to create meaningful connections between their content areas and AI.

What:

• Learn: Understand what AI is, including its capabilities and potential applications within CTE classrooms.

• Explore: Engage with real-world examples and applications of AI in CTE, spanning industries from healthcare to engineering, and how these tools can prepare students for future careers.

• Reflect: Consider how AI integration could look within your specific teaching context, thinking through the needs of students, the available resources, and the ethical implications.

Why:

• AI’s Dual Role: Recognize that AI, like any powerful tool, can support or hinder learning based on how it’s applied, underscoring the need for thoughtful integration.

• Relevance to Industry: With AI shaping every industry, learning to use it is a critical life and career skill that will serve both students and educators.

• Empowering Educators: This session provides strategies for creating AI integration plans grounded in purpose, community support, and teacher agency.

Through learning, exploring, and reflecting, participants will gain the skills to integrate AI in their programs, creating environments where all students are prepared for an technology driven futures.

In the dynamic world of career and technical education (CTE), mental health literacy is paramount both in the classroom and as students transition to their careers. This session will introduce participants to the foundational concepts of Mental Health First Aid and provide practical strategies for integrating this training into CTE programs. Attendees will learn how Mental Health First Aid is inherently culturally responsive and inclusive. The session will highlight the importance of teaching students’ mental health literacy for their personal lives and future careers.

Creating inclusive environments for our college CTE learners across Minnesota will not happen without fostering faculty awareness and investment. Yet CTE faculty participation in professional development remains low, especially around culturally responsive teaching practices. In this interactive session, presenters will share their research to understand faculty reluctance and plans to create a CTE-centric structure for professional development. We will share our findings and engage attendees through review of our assumptions, interpretations, and implications for effective professional development opportunities for CTE faculty.

Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs make up most of the programs offered at our 26 Minnesota State community and technical colleges and rely on faculty to provide high-quality instruction and welcoming, student-centered learning environments. Supporting the training and professional development of these faculty is a systemwide priority because we know that good faculty development can lead to improvements in student learning and success (Dickens, et al., 2018). Additionally, the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) requires Minnesota State to use state leadership funds to support the professional development of CTE faculty (Advance CTE, 2021). However, although our system continues to expand faculty learning opportunities, particularly through college Centers for Teaching and Learning and our systemwide online Minnesota State Network for Educational Development, participation by CTE faculty continues to be low in the many workshops, webinars and short courses offered, and even more so on topics related to culturally responsive teaching practices and student engagement. Why is this? What accounts for the lack of participation by CTE faculty in our current professional development structures and offerings?

For this research project, we identified the following outcomes: 

• Compile a clearer picture of who our CTE faculty are, why they teach, and what they value. 
• Identify why technical faculty do or do not participate in current professional development opportunities.
• Identify the training and professional development needs, and how best to support and deliver that professional development, to Minnesota State career and technical faculty.    
• Design a framework and structure to meet the professional development needs of Minnesota State CTE faculty to encourage and support teaching and learning to meet the needs of all students, including those from special populations. 

We are driven by our interest in expanding the knowledge, skills, and reflective practices to equip CTE faculty with pedagogical skills that enhance their teaching effectiveness and ultimately enrich the learning experiences for students, especially our diverse student populations. This presentation will share our research project and findings, including a review of the project design and data collected through a statewide survey. We will engage the audience in our interpretation of those findings and challenge attendees to review our assumptions, enhance our interpretations, and work with us to expand and articulate the implications for effective professional development opportunities for CTE faculty.

Advance CTE. (April, 2021). Perkins V supports teacher recruitment and retention. Advance CTE Research Reports. Retrieved February 3, 2024 from https://careertech.org/resource/perkins-v-supports-teacher-recruitment-and-retention/  

Dickens, E., Cruz, L., Alderson, J., Atias, D., Graham, R., Hurney, C.A., Parker, M., Smentkowski, B., Smitherman, M., Thomas, M. Troisi, J.D., Vincent-Layton, K., & Wang, C. (2019). Starting a Center for Teaching and Learning. POD Speaks 3, 1–6.  

After this session, participants will:

1. Develop a clear understanding of who Minnesota State CTE faculty are, including their motivations for teaching and the values they bring to their roles.
2. Analyze the factors influencing faculty engagement in professional development opportunities, including those with a focus on culturally responsive teaching practices.
3. Contribute your knowledge towards identifying professional development needs for Minnesota State CTE faculty, as well as effective strategies for supporting and delivering this training.

This presentation will highlight strategies used to develop Saint Paul Public Schools Education Pathway for High School students. The goal of the Education Pathway is to provide opportunities for students, specifically students who identify as students of color to explore the field of education.

Learn how new Education Pathway courses were developed, how to create paid internships for students, develop scholarships and learn ways to grow quality partnerships that benefit students exploring education related careers.

You will walk away with resources, ideas and connections to help build and support an educator pathway for high school students.

After thissession, you will be able to:

• Identify strategies to develop a High School Educator Pathway.
• Determine different ways to help students explore careers in Education.
• Learn how to create partnerships that will support students exploring Education.