As you will remember, two of the LINCS Community groups, Career Pathways and Postsecondary Completion, are highlighting resources such as program implementation tools, archived webinars and online courses from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education funded project, Designing Instruction for Career Pathways (DICP). These resources are now available within our LINCS Resource Collection, if you use the search term – DICP. We hope that highlighting these professional development materials will impact your program and practice.
For the next few days (into next week) we will be highlighting the topic of Engaging Employers in Adult Career Pathways, and there are a number of resources from the DICP (Designing Instruction for Career Pathways) project that can inform us and help us think about this topic, including a webcast, an online course, and several resources.
Here is the information about the online course:
Engaging Employers in Adult Career Pathways
This course will take approximately 2 hours to complete.
Engaging Employers in Adult Career Pathways helps adult education instructors and program administrators understand how to identify, engage, and sustain engagement of appropriate employers in the development of career pathways programs. The course is self-paced and features three modules: (1) Creating a Business-Education Partnership; (2) Building Business Engagement; and (3) Sustaining Business Engagement.
If you have never signed up for an online course on the LINCS Learning Portal, you will have to setup a login for the Learning Portal. This is a separate login from your Career Pathways Community of Practice login. The LINCS Learning Portal can be accessed here: https://lincs.ed.gov/.
After you have taken this course, share some of your thoughts about it with the group. If you respond to this post with your comments, we will be able to keep all the comments about this topic together in one thread. This discussion doesn’t have to happen this week. It can take place over time as people have the opportunity to access the information.
I will follow up tomorrow with resources concerning Engaging Employers in Adult Career Pathways and information about the webcast on this topic.
Donna Brian
SME Career Pathways
Comments
Thanks Donna for starting and sharing about the Engaging Employers online course!
There are many articles in the ACP Newsletters that also highlight the topic of employer engagement at the local/program level. I've listed a couple below that may be of interest to you:
We invite you to continue to explore the resources transitioned from the Designing Instruction for Career Pathways project here: http://lincs.ed.gov/programs/acp
Donna will be sharing additional resources related to employer engagement this week and next.
Happy reading and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
Three resources that were added to our collection from DICP are especially valuable in discussing engaging employers in career pathways. The links below will take you to the reviews of these resources and within the reviews are direct links to the resources themselves.
Engaging Employers to Support Adult Career Pathways Programs is an issue brief intended to help adult career pathways programs engage employers to ensure responsivity to the needs of local industry, while providing adult learners with the relevant workplace context and foundational skills they must master to succeed along a career pathway. The brief highlights the experiences of three states, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Illinois, in engaging employers at the state and local levels.
Career Pathways Toolkit: Six Key Elements for Success is a comprehensive guide from U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Workforce Development. The six sections take you from "What are career pathways?" through "Analyze data, revisit desired outcomes, and assess progress." Element Two, "Identify Sector or Industry and Engage Employers" is especially relevant to our discussion. It contains sections on "Conduct labor market analysis and share results with partners", "Target high-demand and growing sectors", "Identify key employers and clarify their roles", and "Sustain and expand business partnerships".
Career Pathways Toolkit: Six Key Elements for Success – Element Three: Design Education and Training Programs is also applicable to engaging employers, especially its section on "Seek employer validation of competencies and pathways".