Career technical education plays an important part in the mission of community colleges – providing educational opportunities needed by members of their communities. Career technical programs prepare students for entry into the workforce. Accountability standards for career technical programs, from local, state, and federal bodies, monitor placement of career technical graduates in jobs related to their field of study. To help these students become more competitive in the job market, curricula are being aligned with national certifications to help students graduate from career technical programs with stackable credentials. Stackable credentials refer to the idea of “stacking” degrees, certifications, and credentials along the way to an education in a particular field of study. Some of these credentials can be costly, though, requiring career technical program administrators to question whether implementing this stackable credential structure is truly beneficial for the students. The purpose of this study was to examine survey results of industry representatives who serve on advisory committees for career technical programs at a rural community college to ascertain whether earning stackable credentials in career technical programs at a rural community college does increase opportunities for employment. Data were obtained from an Industry Input Survey conducted at a rural community college. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Results of this study indicate that while entry-level employment requirements focus more on a high-school diploma or high school equivalency exam and an earned Associate of Applied Science degree, the majority of participants did indicate that holding a national certification would give a potential employee hiring preferences. Results of the analysis are presented in narrative and table form. Conclusions and recommendations for future research follow discussion of analysis.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of innovative designs within community college short-term certificate programs. Innovations in workforce training occur as stakeholders identify highly successful vocational programs and replicate those programs. Educational leaders in several states have developed short-term certificate programs to provide training that rewards students for completing modules of competencies en route to further certificates or degrees. Collective case studies were performed on the content of policy documents and of interviews with administrators at three California community colleges pertaining to the design of short-term vocational courses. The cross-case analysis showed agreement of the need for high levels of collaboration, development of fast-track programs to meet employability needs, and design of pathways to allow credits toward other certificates or degrees. Charts are displayed of data trends for short-term certificates earned by unit category over the years 1998-2007. Examples of short-term curricular schema are included in the appendices.

Donmoyer (1990) suggested that knowledge gained from our own experiences or that of others may be applied to the improvement of practice. The purpose of this study was to provide insight into the experiences of a first-time online facilitator. The research question for this study was: How does a first-time facilitator understand the process of delivering instruction in an online environment? A case study design was applied to this research. The researcher/participant was the case under study in the context of the delivery of online instruction. The researcher who was also the online instructional facilitator experienced the process of delivering online instruction for the first time. The use of this method provided a first-hand perspective of the experiences of an online facilitator. The study was conducted in two phases. During Phase I, the researcher/participant participated in a train-the-trainer program that was delivered using the Blackboard® learning management system. During Phase II, the researcher/participant facilitated an online professional development session created during the training. Data were collected from a variety of sources, including journaling, interviews with a master trainer and other online facilitators, and analysis of course materials and completed assignments. Three themes emerged from the data. The themes were: (a) time, (b) adherence to standards, and (c) absence of physical presence. Recommendations included: (a) alignment of training and evaluation with professional development and content standards, (b) awarding of credit based on demonstrations of learning and student achievement, (c) facilitator awareness of non-instructional responsibilities, (d) training and support for the efficient use of technology to manage administrative and support tasks, (e) enforcement of completion deadlines, (f) provision of feedback on assignments, (g) implementation of additional opportunities for collaboration, (h) participant and facilitator awareness of time and paper needed for learning and record-keeping tasks, (i) training for participants without demonstrated technology proficiency, (j) implementation of a blended training approach, and (k) investigation of web-based publications for use in the delivery of online professional development.

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to identify the perception influenced by phenomena impacting core-subject teacher perceptions of career technical education (CTE). Studies show that CTE is highly successful at preparing California’s students for college and career (Friedman, 2006). However, some educators see “CTE maintain less value in helping to encourage student success” (Shanklin, 2014, p. 3). The phenomenological study examined the perception influencing lived experiences with focus groups and one-on-one interviews. Core-subject teachers participated in these face-to-face interviews. Findings show that core-subject teachers are biased against CTE. Analysis of the survey results determined perception influenced by phenomena experienced by core-subject instructors included perfectionistic characteristics among parents, a society obsessed with outdoing the other person and very little evidence of educational reforms. The study asked questions to raise the teachers’ perceptions of the rigor and relevance in CTE, to identify support that teachers give students applying to CTE instead of college, and how do teachers support the integrated curriculum. Future results will see educational leaders and teachers improve the perception of CTE using new training. A policy change would allow English Language Learners exiting an English Language Development centered schedule on being eligible for CTE at any age. Essential to the future of CTE are (1) lengthening the school day to accommodate a more diversified schedule and (2) eliminating the requirement to stay in one industry sector for up to four years.

No description available.

No description available.

Career Academy instructors’ technical literacy is vital to the academic success of students. This nonexperimental ex post facto study examined the relationships between the level of technical literacy of instructors in career academies and student academic performance. It was also undertaken to explore the relationship between the pedagogical training of instructors and the academic performance of students. Out of a heterogeneous population of 564 teachers in six targeted schools, 136 teachers (26.0 %) responded to an online survey. The survey was designed to gather demographic and teaching experience data. Each demographic item was linked by researchers to teachers’ technology use in the classroom. Student achievement was measured by student learning gains as assessed by the reading section of the FCAT from the previous to the present school year. Linear and hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine the research questions. To clarify the possibility of teacher gender and teacher race/ethnic group differences by research variable, a series of one-way ANOVAs were conducted. As revealed by the ANOVA results, there were not statistically significant group differences in any of the research variables by teacher gender or teacher race/ethnicity. Greater student learning gains were associated with greater teacher technical expertise integrating computers and technology into the classroom, even after controlling for teacher attitude towards computers. Neither teacher attitude toward technology integration nor years of experience in integrating computers into the curriculum significantly predicted student learning gains in the regression models. Implications for HRD theory, research, and practice suggest that identifying teacher levels of technical literacy may help improve student academic performance by facilitating professional development strategies and new parameters for defining highly qualified instructors with 21st century skills. District professional development programs can benefit by increasing their offerings to include more computer and information communication technology courses. Teacher preparation programs can benefit by including technical literacy as part of their curriculum. State certification requirements could be expanded to include formal surveys to assess teacher use of technology.