Academic and Career Planning for College and Career-Ready Graduates

1. Academic and Career Planning for College and Career-Ready Graduates Kevin Miller Dual Enrollment Consultant Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

2. Agenda: • Diamonds in the Rough • Setting the Table • Overview of Academic & Career Planning (ACP) • A Shift • The ACP-Transition Connection • Questions

3. Diamonds in the Rough

4. Consider the Diamond • Laid out on a soft cloth or viewed through a magnifier • Set amongst other beautiful gems • Set in a ring, necklace, or earrings • The Hope Diamond or the Crown Jewels • Maybe industrial applications

5. The Rest of the Story • The beauty and/or utility requires extensive processing by skilled craftspeople • There is natural beauty before refinement, but there is also great potential • The right person with the right skills can bring out the potential

6. Children as Diamonds • Genetics and early nurturing form unique characteristics of each child • There is natural beauty in each child • Children bring smiles and joy • Children hold incredible potential, but it is sometimes hidden deep inside

7. Finding the Potential • Good teachers – like good jewelers –look deeply and carefully at each student • They find the unique characteristics • They apply different tools and techniques tailored to the unique characteristics • They constantly reassess and adapt their approach for each child

8. Some Have Personal “Jewelers” • Receive refinement and polishing outside of school • Caring nurturing adults • Surrounded by books, reading, etc. • Challenged by games and activities • Access to camps, trips, cultural events, sports, drama, clubs, etc.

9. Schools not Always Conducive • Increasing academic demands • Directed or mandated instruction and assessments • Limited time to carefully discover each student’s unique characteristics • Limited opportunities to develop meaningful, trusting, mutually respectful relationships

10. Opportunities Better than Ever • Web-based and other technology tools • New ways to deliver instruction • New contexts for students to learn • Increasing acceptance of innovation • Academic and Career Plans and ACP Planning Process

11. ACPs – Polishing for Every Child • ACP only as good as process that created it • Generic diamond cutting instructions won’t achieve max potential for most diamonds • Same is true for students • Caring adult needs time to discover student characteristics, guide development of personalized ACP, then bring the ACP to life

12. Strength and Beauty • Regardless of treatment (neglect, abuse, or just poorly skilled craftspeople), diamonds remain strong with potential for beauty • Humans are the same, however… • Both can be crushed beyond repair if subjected to enough of the wrong types of pressure

13. ACPs as a Means to Success • Caring Adult relationship • Self-Awareness and discovery • Vision, skills, desire • Achieving potential and satisfaction

14. Setting the Table for ACPs

15. Challenges Facing Schools: • Pervasive achievement gaps • High drop-out/low graduation rates in some places • Post-secondary school performance • High need for remedial coursework • Poor program completion rates • Skills gaps • Low CTE enrollment • Truancy and student conduct concerns

16. What’s Been Tried: • “Bring to scale” successful initiatives • Increased academic instruction • District-wide, school-wide, program-wide “reforms” and initiatives • Initiatives based on test scores • Academic standards and standardized assessments

17. The Results: • Incremental improvements • Occasional successes • Strained resources • Initiative overload • And…

18. ACP Overview

19. The World Before ACPs

20. The World with ACPs • Students have a realistic vision of their future • Students know the skills, knowledge, and habits needed to achieve that vision • Students have access to the instruction needed to develop the skills, knowledge, and habits • Students are an active participant in determining how to meet their needs

21. What is Academic and Career Planning? • An ongoing process to actively engage a student : • in his or her instructional and learning opportunities both in and out of school • in career development opportunities that incorporate self-exploration, career exploration, and career planning and management activities. • A product that documents and reflects a student’s: • coursework, learning, and assessment results • post-secondary plans aligned to career goals • record of the student’s college and career readiness skills. 

22. Each student’s process: • Who am I? (Know) • What do I want to do? (Explore) • How do get I there? (Plan) • Let’s GO! (Implement)

23. Why Academic and Career Planning? • RESEARCH! Students with a future focus show: • improved motivation, engagement in school, academic performance, relevant course selection, understanding post-secondary options; and • engage in decreased risk-taking behaviors. • ACPs are identified as best practice in the WI comprehensive school counseling standards & in the WI Digital Learning Plan. • Academic and Career Planning adds relevance to other initiatives (i.e. personalizing learning, PBIS, RtI, Dual Enrollment, Youth Options). • WI Statute 115.28(59) supports Academic & Career Planning Student Learning Plans: Supporting Every Student's Transition to College and Career Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy, June 2011. School Connectedness: Strategies for Increasing Protective Factors Among Youth Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009.

24. Wisconsin Statute 115.28(59) • Includes $1.1 million in 2014-2015 funding for software technology and professional development supporting statewide implementation of ACP.  • Authorizes DPI to create administrative rule with requirements for ACP services for all students in grades 6-12 by 2017-18.

25. A Shift

26. ACP Process Components: • KNOW • Self awareness (i.e., interests, aptitudes, strengths, weaknesses, passions) • Exploration activities (i.e., interest inventories, reflection exercises) • Vision development • Individual goal-setting • EXPLORE • Career awareness assessments and activities • Career research • Occupational and career experiences (i.e., investigative interviews, job shadows, paid or unpaid work experience)

27. ACP Process Components Include: • PLAN • Connect instructional activities with the education and preparation needed to successfully enter a particular field of interest • Work-based learning opportunities • Extra-curricular and community-based learning experiences • Postsecondary training options • Financial plan • IMPLEMENT • Update Quarterly (at least) • Adapt/Modify Intentional Sequence of Courses • Adapt/Modify Personal Goals • Adapt/Modify Career Goals • ACP Conferencing

28. Select ACP Resources Work-based Learning Dual Enrollment Programs of Study ACP Resources In Development

29. ACP Challenges • Buy in • Student engagement • Current structure of our schools • A shift in how we approach career development

30. Quality Academic & Career Planning • Includes and reinforces strong relationships between students and the mentors/adults in their lives • Increases the connections between student self-awareness, daily instruction, and career/college goals • Shows positive outcomes—students are more engaged and autonomous in school • Enhances student resiliency to overcome challenges & changes • Provides qualitative and quantitative data regarding college and career readiness paths

31. ACP Navigation Goal All students understand themselves, explore their world, establish goals for their futures, and create a plan to achieve their goals; while realizing that alternative routes or temporary roadblocks can mean that a recalculation is necessary on one’s journey.

32. The ACP-Transition Connection • All students must transition, but… • Certain students are required to have a transition plan • ACPs = Transition Plans for all students with… • All school staff dedicated to implementation • In other words, ACPs will improve numerous outcomes for all students, including SWD

33. Questions? Kevin Miller Dual Enrollment Consultant; WI Department of Public Instruction kevin.miller@dpi.wi.gov 608-267-3161