College and Career Ready
Multiple Pathways to Success
Welcome to this course on multiple pathways to career success.
Who should take this course? This course is designed for career counselors, career coaches, school counselors, workforce development staff, and educators including teachers and school administrators. Even education reformers and policy makers will benefit from the information in this course.
This course has the following objectives.
- to describe the educational needs of the workforce of the future
- to discuss the job opportunities for persons who obtain some postsecondary education
- to emphasize the need for helping our young people become college and career ready
- to highlight the role of multiple pathways leading to college, careers and job success
Using videos and readings, completion of this course will earn you 4 clock hours for your professional development. You have 30 days to complete the requirements. The best way to assure completion is to set aside 1-2 blocks of time when you can fully concentrate on the course requirements.
View this to see what you will do during this course.
This course has three major parts. Complete each part and complete the worksheet. Download the worksheet and save it to your computer. As you go through the course you will be asked to answer some questions.
You will also need to complete an evaluation of this course. On that evaluation, you will be asked to estimate the amount of time it took you to complete the course requirements. This is to help validate the number of clock hours offered for this program.
Most importantly have fun learning about some new ideas. Think about how you will use the information to improve your skills and knowledge in working with students, clients, customers, and colleagues.
Education Needs of Our Future Workforce
Various studies have shown that, in order to compete in a global economy, the workforce of the future needs to have higher levels of skills and education. In fact, in many studies looking at the changes in tasks in jobs over time, those requiring manual tasks, or routine tasks, have decreased and those requiring analytical tasks have increased. Some studies have even suggested that vast numbers of jobs in the US economy will be performed by computers and other automation and not by people. We can see some of this happening already where computers and other machines are performing some tasks more effectively and efficiently.
Further, four of every 10 new college students, including half of those at two-year institutions, take remedial courses, and many employers comment on the inadequate preparation of high school graduates.
One of the groups that studies the workforce and education is Georgetown University’s Center of Education and the Workforce. View the following video which summarized some pertinent points from one of the reports from the Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.
View the Video below.
Read pages 13-18 in this report Projections for Jobs and Education Requirements.
Answer item 1 in your worksheet.
When you have completed the requirements of this section, go to Part 2.
Multiple Pathways to Career Success
In this section of the course, we will look at how individuals can prepare themselves for good jobs and careers. There are many ways to achieve this.
View this Multiple Pathways video below.
View this Pathways to Prosperity from the American Youth Policy Forum Video below (34 minutes).
Read pages 1-14 of the Pathways to Prosperity Report.
Listen to the first 13 minutes of the On Point Radio show on the Pathways to Prosperity report issues by clicking on the audio button.
Answer questions 2, 3, and 4 on your worksheet.
Listen to this NPR interview on the subject of college and career ready and the multiple pathways to reach success.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/12/16/college-not-for-everyone
Go to Part 3.
What is College and Career Ready and How Close are We to Achieving That Goal?
In this section, we will see that various institutions have defined college and career ready.
View this below
to see how college and career ready is viewed by two different organizations influential in career preparation and educational reform. One organization is Achieve and the second is ACT.
Read this fact sheet produced by Achieve .
ACT has created an annual report that identifies the college readiness of individuals who have taken the ACT. Check out this website to see how students have done this year. ACT Report
If you poke around this website, you can find a lot more interesting information including educational plans and state specific information. Check out the report for your state.
Read this article that offers a summary of the importance of college and career ready and how it is defined it was written by Dr David T. Conley of the Educational Policy Improvement Center. College and Career Readiness Definition
Listen to Dr. Conley speak about college and career readiness and his four keys to college and career readiness. Click on the audio button.
View this video below on how the Association for Career And Technical Education explains being career and college ready.
View the video to see how the basic requirements for college and career readiness are perceived to be the same. Data First Training: College and Career Readiness from Center for Public Education on Vimeo.
Answer question 5 on your worksheet.
Watch this video which is a good summary of the situation we face in the US with regard to education and the workforce.
Success in the New Economy from Brian Y. Marsh on Vimeo.
Since 2017, there has been an increased emphasis on middle skills, the skills gap, blue collar work, and good jobs. Listen to this short selection from a discussion on NPR’s 1A on the subject.
Listen to this 20 minute audio. As you listen to the presenters, think about what you might do to help individuals obtain a valuable career in areas that may not require a 4 year degree.
Finally, view this video below to see how deeper learning skills and competencies are needed to help individuals survive and thrive in occupations across all types of areas as identified by the Department of Labor/O*NET.
Finally, check out this video on why we need to focus more on helping college and career ready youth gain a postsecondary certificate or degree.
Send your worksheet to Dr. Janet Wall for evaluation.
Then complete the evaluation. 
Congratulations on completing this course! When you submit the worksheet and complete the evaluation, you will be sent your certificate of completion.
Extra Resources
http://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/125455/_self/CC_layout_details/false
https://ccrscenter.org/implementation-tools/developing-college-and-career-ready
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