business seen
121 Overhead Door
Curves
SeekingSitters
civic forum
Allen Recycles Day—N...
Pananche 2007!
cooking
In the kitchen with ...
education
Simplifying career p...
Students gain edge t...
feature
Finding their home a...
gardening
Bringing your plants...
health & fitness
Get your flu armor u...
helping hands
Thanksgiving Food Ba...
kids korner
Holiday Krafts
library
Snoopy, World War I ...
looking back
Allenites remember N...
parenting
Adolescence and the ...
|
 |
by Justin Acker
Imagine a world where every student knew what they wanted to do with their life before they even graduated high school. Imagine if college majors were never in question and every student had a solid career goal for their future.
A federal and statewide effort to redesign education called "AchieveTexas" is helping to per¬petuate this transition through a detailed system that encourages career awareness in elementary, exploration in middle school and specifies that by high school a student will focus on career preparation.
"Students can change their career choices in high school instead of waiting until college to change an entire major, losing valuable credits, time and money spent on courses that did not apply toward their degree plan," said Dr. Maroba Zoeller, Allen ISD Executive Director of Secondary Programs.
The program enables students to obtain information that can be used as a basis for making choices regarding future jobs, provides students the opportunity to integrate classroom learning into work place experience, enables students to identify their strengths and weaknesses in the workplace, helps students choose appropriate college classes and allows students to network with other professionals in their career field.
"AchieveTexas gives students a broad exposure to the many post-secondary educational possibilities," said Zoeller. "Students can select any number of career clusters to explore."
The philosophy behind Achieve Texas is simple; "All students can succeed in school, career and life if they plan their own individual pathways to success." The program was established at the state level with a focus on a collection of 16 occupations, or "career clusters."
Career clusters offer a guidance tool designed to help students plan their educational experience based on their career goals. The 16 clusters are: Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; Architecture and Construction; Arts, A/V Technology and Communications; Business Management and Administration; Education and Training; Finance; Government and Public Administration; Health Science; Hospitality and Tourism; Human Services; Information Technology; Manufacturing; Marketing, Sales and Service; Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; and Transportation, Distribution and Logistics.
From these 16 career clusters, 81 detailed "career pathways" were developed to provide students individual programs of study that specify courses to be taken in high school, some of which involve work-based experience, as well as the college courses they will have to take and degrees they need to earn to support their chosen career. Also, the career pathways describe extended learning experience through extra¬curricular activities.
"Career pathways are a way of reorganizing learning around clusters of study that will prepare students by connecting what students learn in school every day to what they aspire to do tomorrow," said Zoeller.
Currently, Allen ISD offers 13 of the 16 federally-identified career clusters. Complete programs of study with real-world application, such as internships, are offered in the Arts, A/V Technology and Communication, Education and Training, Health Science, Hospitality and Tourism, Marketing, and Sales and Service career clusters.
An example of a comprehensive program at Allen High School is the Education and Training career cluster, which offers the Educator Pathway and the Ready, Set, Teach learning opportunity for aspiring teachers.
Also, in the Health Science career cluster, the high school offers career pathways that involve students in Clinical Rotation and offers a program of study that provides an opportunity for students to obtain Certified Nursing Assistants certification and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification.
Currently, AchieveTexas begins at the middle school level with "Bridges," a web-based program that is in place to give students aptitude tests, interview questions and application tips for college bound and career bound students. Test scores are recorded and can be used to narrow down the student’s college and career interests. Once a student chooses a career pathway, they can print and reference the document when registering for high school courses.
AchieveTexas will start at the elementary levels in October with "Paws in Job Land," a cartoon dog that leads the students through various career opportunities and interests.
"A major goal of our AchieveTexas program is to expand the extra¬curricular learning opportunities, or work-based learning, through internships, career preparation, apprentice¬ship and job shadowing," said Zoeller. "We’ve already seen a great response and look forward to continuing to expand the program in the future." |
