Unit 9 - School Based Enterprises

I believe that the business model presented at Centennial High School’s Marketing and Business Academy would be very successful at all levels of education.  There may need to be a few changes in the type of products sold based on the venue these services are offered. Regardless of the product sold, the concepts behind the operation are still the same.  All levels need to see the connection between what they are learning in theory and how it is applied in practice.  I believe that this model encapsulates the necessary skills that students need to understand in the career world.

It is my opinion that the more valid and practical we can make education to the students, the more likely that students will be successful.  The business model discussed above brings the theory to life.  Students can get behind it and get excited.  When they apply the principals that they have been learning about and actually see the benefits of the application, academic concepts begin to make sense.

The link below shows elementary students learning about the world of work in a practical and fun way.

Work Based Learning Video:

Marketing Madness Highlight Reel - http://vimeo.com/3351152

Unit 9 - Job Shadowing Work Based Learning Sites

http://www.work-basedlearning.org/toolkit.cfm - Tools for analysis and evaluation, writing and learning objectives, and Learning plans.

http://www.wcpss.net/school_to_career/work_based_learning/  - Examples of Work Based learning in Wake County Public Schools in North Carolina.  Contains resources for Career Fair preparation and presentations.

http://vocserve.berkeley.edu/CenterPoint/CP1/CP1.html - Good overview of Work-Based Learning and how it operates.

If I were to offer job shadowing, I would want the following components in the program to ensure that my students have a successful experience.

1.       Relevant experiences on the job site.  I would expect that my students would see computer techs working on real problems.  They would need to see the way customers’ problems are dealt with. 

2.       How to work with a team on large projects and as an individual on smaller ones.

3.       Soft skills such as oral communications.  How to deal with irate customers.  How to handle a troubleshooting call over the phone. How to explain to a customer the problems and techniques used to fix their computer.

4.       Soft skills such as written communications.  Documenting work performed on a project so that another tech can tell what steps to take to finish the job if needed.

Unit 8 - Legal Issues

Does your district currently have a policy to cover student accidents for school sponsored activities?

Our District carries Insurance through The Trust which covers General Liability and Professional Liability. 

Would this cover work-based learning experiences?

We do not carry insurance that is stated to specifically cover student accidents for school sponsored activities. 

Does your district have optional accident/health insurance that students can purchase? 

We offer insurance to all students.  We generally provide insurance packets during registration but it can be purchased at any time.  Anyone can purchase it.  We find that the majority of our students are covered by railroad parents or Indian Health Services.

Could you require CTE students to participate to cover work based learning experiences?

To require students to participate in the insurance, if they don’t have any, would mean a change in our current policy.

I can see the necessity of being insured as condition for work-based programs.  However, to require this could put some families in financial hardship.  A policy might need to be written that would require parents to sign some type of Hold Harmless Agreement or waiver that might remove the school from any liability.  It could also become a stumbling block for students of lower income families, thus keeping them out of a beneficial program.

Unit 4 - Recruiting Students

This program would be used as a capstone to certification training.  Students would only be eligible if they had either acquired their A+ certification or were in the process of receiving it.  I would market it to students that had already received their certification as an opportunity to obtain real world experience to increase their marketability In the IT market. 

When marketing to my certificate seeking students, I would use the approach that on the job training will only further cement the concepts they have been studying for the past couple of years.  It will also improve their confidence level when they are ready to sit for the certification exam.

My final step would be to explain just how much of an advantage they will have after graduation.  They will not only have their high school diploma, they will have an industry recognized certification and a year’s worth of experience under their belt.  It will be a big advantage for them competing in the field with experience and a certification.

Unit 4 - Recruiting Training Stations

I would begin by visiting the company.  In my town of ten thousand it would be very easy to locate an Information Technology company.  Since my town is small we do have a lot of support from the community.  So, I would expect that this company would share in that support.

Once I had visited the company, I would check to ensure that students would have access to the necessary equipment to further education.  I would also want to be sure that the management would be willing to take on the role of educator and trainer.  I believe that if I can get them to see the value of creating their own potential pool of employees they would be willing to get involved.

In my situation, if a co-operative education program was necessary, I could not afford to be too picky about the company.  Yes, I would make sure that the students would be safe, receive valuable experience, and have the opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge to the work site.  I would have to work very closely with the company to help them provide experiences that would be meaningful to the students.

In this day and age of increasing accountability, and increasing standard requirements, I do not see how I would have the time to even attempt to create such a program.  If this was I all I to do every day then I could see this becoming a strong program.

Unit 3 - CTE Internships vs. CoOp

CTE Internships appear to be much easier to set up.  I could see an internship working for two of my classes that I teach.  Our District Information Technology office is located just down the hall from my classroom.  So having interns there would make perfect sense.  An internship program would be much easier for me to implement than a Co Op due to the schedule structure that our high school follows.  I would not be required to hold a Co Op endorsement and working with the IT department would be easier based on their location.  There is still a large amount of paperwork required to run both but a lot less leg work would be required on my part.  I believe that to make it more desirable for seniors here, it would need to be a paid internship that was competitive with local hourly rates in town.  It would greatly enrich my program if I had my Juniors obtain their CompTIA A+ certification and then during their senior year, they work with the IT department under an internship program.  My students would graduate with their certification, a years experience in the field and a leg up on their competition.

Unit 3 - Arizona Coop vs. Nebraska

My first impression is that Nebraska seems to be more on board with Cooperative Education than Arizona.  They are getting kids as young as the 5th grade involved.  Arizona's plan is to start them at 16.  In my opinion one would have to look at any data from Nebraska that would point to the successes of starting kids from the 5th grade.  Arizona's approach makes a little more sense to me because they are hitting young adults that are actually starting to think about their future.  Not to say that Nebraska isn't doing the same thing they are just starting at a much younger age.  I think we are missing something as a nation by making our kids choose what they want to be when they grow up at such an early age.  I'm not on board with this concept.  I look back at our predecessors and their achievements and wonder why we think that robbing our kids of their childhood and teen years is a benefit to them.  It seems to me that many of the great minds of the past were allowed to explore the world naturally and not be pushed into make such life decisions until they were ready; not when society says they should be ready.  We wonder why or kids in general are suffering from adult illnesses and addictions.  It is because we have put them there with our desire for them to have a plan for their life before they have even had a chance to experience life.  Enough of my soapbox about our desire to force our kids into careers way before their time.

On to the rest of Coop Education.  I look at the requirements for the teachers and both want them to have a Coop Endorsement.  Nebraska on the other hand requires much more of their teachers before they can get their endorsement.  That says something about how serious they take the program.  I do not have any new information to add to this as Cooperative Education is not an option in my district.  I really can not say which is more beneficial having no experience with Coops.

Based on the reading it appears that running a Coop requires a full time teacher.  In my district we do not run on block.  We have experimented with block scheduling but found that it reduced our numbers in the CTE department.  Mostly due to the continued added academic requirements handed down by the state.  Winslow is a railroad town with very littel to offer in the way of industry.  Coops for anything other then child care would be very hard to implement in this town.