School and Beyond!

Apprenticeship (registered): A training program, typically four years in duration, in which apprentices learn on-the-job under the supervision of a skilled journey-level tradesperson. On-the-job training is supplemented with a prescribed sequence of classroom-based learning activities. Apprenticeships are regulated by law and managed by unions in cooperation with participating employers. These programs provide apprentices with excellent skills and a portable credential.

Career Assessments and Interest Inventories: Surveys that ask students to consider their career-related interests, values, and goals and/or their personal qualities and strengths.

Career Speakers and Career Fairs: Members of the community are invited to speak about various career-related issues, including their own careers and the industries in which they work. Speakers may be invited individually or as part of panels or larger career events. Programs such as Junior Achievement programs also use community speakers to deliver special curriculum in the classroom.

Clinical Experience: This strategy is used almost exclusively in the medical field and is often a requirement for state and/or national certification. The clinical or on-the-job experience, typically non-paid, occurs under the supervision of a practitioner certified as both a teacher and a supervisor. Classroom learning is reinforced by experience on the job. Ongoing theory classes may continue concurrently with the clinical experience.

Community Classroom: A type of program that places students in unpaid work experience at business and industry sites or public agencies. A classroom teacher supervises the activity to ensure that the student earns school credit for this activity and the school earns ADA.

Community Service and Service Learning: Community service is a method of instruction whereby students learn through unpaid active participation in organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of a community. Community service integrates and enhances the academic curriculum and is also an unpaid contribution to the community. Community service is typically a short-term activity with the focus often on service and citizenship. Service learning is a method of instruction whereby students learn and develop skills through unpaid active participation in thoughtfully organized community service. It integrates and enhances the academic curriculum of the students with the service learning activity. While the term is often used interchangeably with community service, service learning is closely tied to an academic program and involves project planning and development in the classroom.

Cooperative Vocational Education: This educational strategy is virtually identical to the Community Classroom, except the student must be paid and the employer provides Worker’s Compensation coverage. The California Education Code authorizes ROP/Cs to administer these programs. Community colleges also operate cooperative education programs.

Informational Interview: A career awareness activity in which students formally interview a workplace partner about his or her industry and chosen profession. The interview includes discussion of the career itself, duties and daily activities of the jobs and the level of education required to be successful. The students also explore growth opportunities in the industry and salary ranges for different occupations.

Integrated Curriculum: Curriculum that draws on material from more than one discipline. In the context of STC, this may mean infusion of career-related material or themes into the academic content and/or integration of “hands on” experiences to help students learn more effectively. It may also mean explicit reinforcement of academic skills in career-related courses – ensuring that career-related and other technical courses support students’ achievement of academic standards. Integrated curriculum is best achieved and most supportive of student learning when teachers collaborate closely across disciplines or even team teach classes.

Internships: “Internship” is a generic term for a sustained workplace learning experience. The term does not have formal designation within the California Education Code. Internships are structured work experiences for students in a career field that is of interest to them. Internships vary in length from a few weeks to more than one semester. There can also be great variation in time commitment, student roles and responsibilities, learning modalities (such as building of technical skills through practice versus one-time projects emphasizing teamwork and presentation), pay or non-pay, school credit, and degree of supervision. Generally speaking, regardless of the structure, a key element of internship is that the work-based learning is linked closely with the in-school instruction or with the student’s career interests.

Job Shadowing: A program in which a student, or small group of students, follows and observes an individual on the job for a designated number of hours or days, as the individual performs workplace tasks. Shadowing more than one individual is also an option. Job shadowing typically lasts from three hours to several days, or according to the Education Code, up to 25 hours in one semester, intersession, or summer school session.

Mentoring: A learning experience which matches a student with a member of the community for career guidance and a first hand introduction to a career field or occupation. Mentoring can occur though face-to-face contact, telephone, or email and is carefully supervised by a mentor coordinator. A mentor may also serve as a role model and provide encouragement in areas of personal growth as well as career development.

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Project-Based Learning: A strategy wherein students learn by taking on “real world” problems that cross curricular areas and require the use of higher order thinking, interpersonal, and other skills. In the best programs, students contribute to the design of the project. They are required to draw on multiple resources and to manage their time, schedules, and outcomes in order to accomplish project goals. Projects are evaluated through authentic, performance-based assessments. In Senior Projects, students have the opportunity to select projects based on their own interests; they are required to do in-depth work, often focusing on real problems in the community. Assessment of senior projects often requires students to make oral presentations to community “experts.”

SCANS: In 1991 the U.S. Department of Labor published a series of documents outlining the findings of The Secretary’s Commission On Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). The Commission, comprised of leaders in business, labor and education, crafted a list of five “competencies” and three sets of “foundation” skills and personal qualities that summarized what they found to be required for individuals to succeed in the workplace – competencies and skills that all students should have before they leave school. Many of the educational documents, assessment instruments and school-to-career materials that were subsequently developed refer to “the SCANS skills”.