School-to-Career

ALMA’s mission is to help adults gain basic reading, writing, and math skills. ALMA creates innovative, educationally sound, and entertaining television-based teaching materials and cultivates community networks to support ALMA learners. TV411, ALMA’s magazine-format television series (with ancillary print materials and an instructional Web site) is aired on more than 100 stations nationwide.

Yes-2-Technology (Y2T) is a physical, life and earth science, IT and workforce development project for teens at the St. Louis Science Center. Funded by NSF’s ITEST program, the goal of the project is to provide disadvantaged teens with the opportunity to broaden their STEM and workplace skills and encourage them to consider further education and careers in IT or STEM.

The FunWorks is a digital library of career exploration resources for youth ages 11 to 15. The FunWorks provides “real world” experiences and uses children’s current interests and passions, such as music and sports, to help them explore exciting future careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The site was designed for and by children—over 300 young people have participated in the design and launch of this one-of-a-kind collection from the initial concept to design, usability testing, and launch.

EDC is developing an interdisciplinary career technical education (CTE) curriculum, Making Connections, that prepares students to pursue their interests in the arts, media, and entertainment when they go off to college or join the workplace. The curriculum addresses national and California state standards for grades 9 and 10, and also includes integrated units for English language arts, math, science, and social studies to help teachers link these subjects with applications in arts, media, and entertainment.

Building on our previous collaboration to track assessments of 21st century skills (Assess21), the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has engaged CCT to develop a series of online resources to help states understand and support the teaching, learning and assessment of 21st century skills. We are also identifying state-level resources that address key educational components needed to bring those skills into the classroom.

Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Mass., has contracted with CSE to conduct the preliminary research for and the evaluation of its new Massachusetts Technician Education Collaboration (Mass-TEC). Mass-TEC, a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program, intends to increase the number of skilled technicians in central Massachusetts to support regional employers’ high-end engineering and manufacturing operations.