Career and Technical Education (CTE)

With the resurgence in interest in Career Technical Education (CTE), this webinar provided information about the current state of CTE, CTE’s reach, impact and the current trends in policy and practice at the state and federal levels. By viewing these archived materials, you can learn how to leverage CTE activities and staff in your state to advance the goals of your related projects.

The annual State Policies Impacting CTE Year in Review report, a joint publication between Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), will be released at the end of January. Now in its fourth year, the report highlights state legislation, board rules and executive actions impacting CTE across the states. Along with the release of the report, we are hosting a webinar on Wednesday, January 25 at 2:00pm ET to unpack notable policies and discuss trends.

The ITEST program has enabled creativity, experimentation, and cultural responsiveness in STEM education and workforce development and broadened participation in STEM initiatives to Native American communities, underresourced urban communities, girls, and populations underrepresented in STEM fields. By approaching research and evaluation with flexibility and resourcefulness, the authors provide empirical evidence for the value of innovative approaches to STEM education that promote STEM interest and career-related outcomes and that build the foundational skills of the scientific and engineering workforce of the future.

ITEST projects are informed by career education theory and engage students in experiences that: (1) increase student awareness of STEM and related careers; (2) motivate students to pursue the education necessary to participate in those careers; and/or (3) provide students with technology-rich experiences that develop their knowledge of related content and skills (including critical thinking skills) needed for entering the STEM workforce. Below are selected resources to help you learn more about workforce development in STEM education.

NSF ITEST projects are an ideal testbed for researching what it takes to create robust pathways leading towards high-demand technology-centered careers. This webinar presented the results of the STELAR/ITEST Data and Impact Working Group’s efforts to identify the types of data that might be collected by ITEST projects to provide evidence that the program is setting youth on a STEM career trajectory.

This paper, based on a review of over 200 publications related to approximately 110 ITEST projects, seeks to respond to the broadening participation question in the ITEST solicitation. While all ITEST projects include “broadening participation” as a central goal, we found that publications relating to 43 projects contained specific information on broadening participation. Of those, publications relating to 25 projects had “broadening participation” as the primary focus. Here, we present the range of strategies that project teams employed by highlighting some of those 25 projects.

The report includes examples drawn from projects in the national ITEST program which seeks to ensure the breadth and depth of the U.S. STEM workforce.

Preparing Tomorrow's STEM Workforce through Exploration, Equity, and Engagement is a product of the previous ITEST Learning Resource Center (LRC) and includes a series of six articles (plus a preface) highlighting key themes and lessons learned in the first five years of the ITEST program.

Attendees joined us in discussing the elements of Career Education that can help frame your ITEST proposal/project and the types of workforce/career education data that projects should be collecting to document students’ journeys to STEM careers.