Providing Quality Work-Based Learning Training for Secondary Family & Consumer Sciences Educators

Families and community members are challenging secondary schools to improve career readiness preparation. Family and consumer sciences (FCS) educators can be instrumental in helping students prepare effectively for a career with school-to-work transitions through work-based learning (WBL). This article presents the implementation of a 2-day FCS educator training designed to guide and build sustainable high-quality WBL experiences for students through a continuum of WBL options.

Many high school graduates seeking employment face the obstacle of having relevant work experience needed for a particular occupation. Yet, it is difficult to gain the necessary expertise without sustainable partnerships with industry and community professionals and experience in the workplace. According to a Gallup poll, just 5% of adults in the United States believe that high school graduates are prepared for today’s workforce

(Busteed, 2018). In addition, very few of today’s high schools prepare students well for the workplace (Busteed, 2018). Both of these issues reinforce the need for high school students to participate in work-based learning (WBL) opportunities (e.g., informational interviews, job shadows, internships, school-based enterprises) to gain the work experience needed, as well as to confirm the career direction.

The primary purpose of WBL is to merge theory with practice and knowledge with experience (Raelin, 2008). WBL should be intentionally designed to help students extend and deepen classroom work and make progress toward learning outcomes that are difficult to achieve through classroom or formal project-based learning alone. Additionally, WBL offers students the opportunity to reflect on their actual experiences, thereby helping to confirm the career path they pursue after high school.

Most secondary FCS teachers provide opportunities for students to apply what they have learned in the classroom through lab simulations, project-based learning, service learning, and participation in competitive events associated with the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) organization. However, many qualifying experiences such as informational interviews, guest speakers, and job shadows are often not acknowledged as WBL experiences.

Perkins V, also known as the Strengthening the Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, defines WBL as

Sustained interactions with industry or community professionals in real workplace settings, to the extent practicable, or simulated environments at an educational institution that foster in-depth, firsthand engagement with the tasks required of a given career field that are aligned to curriculum and instruction (U.S. Department of Education, 2018).

Work-based learning is not only a junior- and senior-level course that places students in parttime FCS-related occupations. Also, the term work-based does not mean the experience must occur at a workplace or during the standard “workday.” WBL should always involve interaction with industry and community professionals who are not employed by the school but these interactions can take place within a school, community, workplace, virtually via technology, or across a combination of these settings. WBL experiences also may build upon industry projects or activities that FCS educators have arranged with industry and community professionals for their students. Furthermore, work-based learning experiences may occur during the school day, outside the school day, or when school is not in session. In Texas, there has been a lack of reporting WBL experiences in secondary FCS programs due to FCS educators not being familiar with all of the WBL options that can begin in middle school and continue through high school. The Linked Learning Alliance, a national coalition of educators, employers, and community organizations, developed a continuum of WBL experiences that stretches from kindergarten into adulthood and has become the model for many state education departments across the country (Linked Learning, 2012). They created three stages of WBL that aligns with four continuum areas described below (Linked Learning, 2012):

• Career Awareness and Career Exploration experiences support learning about work. In these continuums, students build awareness of the variety of careers available and begin identifying areas of interest, as well as explore career options to provide motivation and inform decision-making.

• Career Preparation experiences support learning through work. Students apply learning through practical experience and interaction with professionals from industry and the community to extend and deepen classroom work and support the development of college- and career-readiness knowledge and skills (higher-order thinking, academic skills, technical skills, and applied workplace skills).

• Career Training experiences support learning for work. Students train for employment in a specific field and range of occupations.

Career development can occur through career speakers, employer panels, informational interviews, job shadowing, career fairs, workplace tours, service learning, internships, apprenticeships, school-based enterprises, and many other types of WBL experiences (Cease-Cook et al., 2019; Darche et al., 2009; Euro-net et al., 2017). In strategically developed programs, students can gain value from role models and mentors while increasing their social capital (Ross et al., 2020; Showalter & Spiker, 2016). There are also opportunities for students to acquire soft skills and technical knowledge that better prepare them to successfully enter the workforce while simultaneously building a solid work history (Jobs for the Future, 2017; McNulty et al., 2012; Showalter & Spiker, 2016; Xanthis, 2015).

Secondary FCS teachers are in an ideal position to facilitate these developmental opportunities for students (Alfeld, 2015; Dobbs-Oates, 2019). As educators in Career & Technical Education (CTE) programs, they often teach employability skills and career-specific technical knowledge as critical curriculum components (Duncan, 2018; Palombit, 2015). These skills are crucial to sufficiently prepare students for the workforce to more adequately meet the needs of employers (Bahl & Dietzen, 2019; Busteed, 2018; Page et al., 2020). Providing WBL opportunities for career awareness, exploration, preparation, and training enables FCS educators to address student uncertainty in career and education planning and decision-making.

Review of Literature

There are many characteristics attributed to quality WBL offerings; however, the meaning of WBL varies throughout the literature. Many scholars advocating for WBL in secondary education emphasize the importance of employer-student interaction (Canney & Mezera, 2020; Darche et al., 2009; McNulty et al., 2012) and curricular alignment (Alfeld et al., 2013; Canney & Mezera, 2020; Haimson & Bellotti, 2001; McNulty et al., 2012; Rogers-Chapman & Darling-Hammond, 2013). Another valuable characteristic of WBL is offering a continuum of progressively immersive and developmental experiences across grade levels (Cahill & Jackson, 2015; Canney & Mezera, 2020; Imperatore & Hyslop, 2018; Jobs for the Future, 2017; McNulty et al., 2012; U. S. Department of Education, 2021).

The continuum that frames these strategies and initiatives varies across the literature but most frequently includes career awareness, career exploration, career preparation, and career training (Cahill & Jackson, 2015; Canney & Mezera, 2020; Imperatore & Hyslop, 2018; McNulty et al., 2012). Integrated into this continuum are numerous opportunities to engage students in occupational, cognitive, and social-emotional development (Alfeld et al., 2013; Darche et al., 2009; Griffith, 2001; Ross et al., 2020). However, this training is not well supported when educators lack sufficient WBL training and resources.

Furthermore, the Perkins V Act specifies that state and local agencies can spend Perkins funds on promoting, creating, or expanding WBL opportunities. It also requires states and localities to describe how they will develop or expand WBL opportunities to ensure secondary students develop the career-readiness knowledge and skills needed to achieve success at the postsecondary and workforce levels.

The Perkins V Act specifies that state and local agencies can spend Perkins funds on promoting, creating, or expanding WBL opportunities.

Secondary FCS Educator WBL Training

Secondary FCS educators must be adequately equipped to prepare students for a successful transition to the workplace; therefore, a training series was designed and offered to secondary FCS educators across Texas. This training was based on existing WBL literature, research, resources, and a survey conducted to better understand secondary school FCS teachers’ knowledge and experience with WBL experiences in Texas.

The results of the survey were insightful in showing that approximately 48% of secondary FCS teachers were not implementing WBL experiences for their students. (See Table 1.) For those FCS teachers implementing WBL experiences, the majority of them were implementing career fairs, guest speakers, industry tours, and practicum/ career preparation courses (see Table 2). The barriers and challenges they were experiencing also could explain why other WBL experiences were not provided for students in secondary FCS course(s).

Based on these survey results, a WBL training was developed with materials and resources that addressed the areas of concern. The training included developing a WBL action plan that identifies appropriate opportunities for middle and high school students and steps for facilitating these high-quality WBL opportunities.

This training also was built on the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) High-Quality Career and Technical Education Framework (Imperatore & Hyslop, 2018). The WBL element of this research-based framework provided a list of nine criteria to help FCS educators develop and enhance the quality of the WBL experiences they were planning to provide for their students (Hyslop & Imperatore, 2015; Imperatore & Hyslop, 2018). This framework also was central to the numerous online resources we provided secondary FCS teachers during the training (Work-Based Learning Resources LiveBinder, Access Key: WBLearning). Furthermore, Pawlowski and Katz’s (2014) Employer Engagement Toolkit was utilized to guide them in building strong and sustainable industry and community partnerships.

Ways to measure and document employability skills and other career-ready knowledge FCS students obtain from WBL experiences were discussed, including how to apply four types of measurement tools: portfolios, rubrics, employer feedback and evaluation, and student-self-assessments. These measurement tools could be used individually or in combination depending on the particular type of WBL experience. This content was significant because measuring student learning while participating in WBL experiences allows students to reflect on their WBL experiences and connect their knowledge and skills to their goals. Also, CTE administrators, secondary FCS teachers, and business/industry partners can use the data to improve the quality of WBL experiences so they remain sustainable in the future for FCS students.

Once secondary FCS teachers participated in the WBL training, they learned how to offer a variety of WBL experiences in every FCS course they taught in middle school and high school.

Once secondary FCS teachers participated in the WBL training, they learned how to offer a variety of WBL experiences in every FCS course they taught in middle school and high school. They also learned how to address the barriers and challenges they were currently facing with their school administration, prospective industry/community partners, students, and parents. These challenges and barriers included access and equity, student transportation and travel time, school policies and practices that inhibited WBL participation, child labor and occupational safety laws, and employer engagement. In addition, they learned how to effectively measure the outcomes of each WBL experience for the continued success and improvement of the program. Last, a WBL action plan was developed to guide these secondary FCS teachers in their support and commitment to developing high-quality WBL experiences for their FCS program within their school district and community.

WBL Training implications

After each training was conducted with secondary FCS teachers, an online evaluation was emailed to them. One of the results of this training showed that 96% of secondary FCS teachers would recommend the training to their FCS colleagues. What they really enjoyed most in this training was learning about all of the WBL experiences they could implement from middle school to high school in all four areas of the WBL continuum, as well as the numerous resources provided in the WBL LiveBinder and in the Employer Engagement Toolkit. They also appreciated the various ideas and step-by-step information for effectively developing these WBL experiences into high-quality experiences for their students. They were pleasantly surprised to learn that some of these WBL experiences were already being provided in their FCS courses, but they enjoyed getting more ideas to improve them. They were also asked what WBL experiences they will offer in the future, and the majority of them stated industry tours/field trips, lunch and learn guest speakers, informational interviews, job shadows, internships, industry-based projects, career portfolios evaluated by industry professionals, service learning projects in collaboration with community professionals, practicums with industry partners providing frequent training lessons, and on-the-job training through career preparation courses.

Two main concerns they had with the training were: (a) digesting all of the information they received in 2 days, and (b) wanting more time learning how to engage industry and community professionals. Due to COVID-19, many of the secondary FCS educators had a limited amount of days they could miss school because of a shortage of substitute teachers, so the 2-day virtual training was the best option for most of them. We also provided other options such as in-person 2-day training at their regional education service center, virtual training for 3 hours (4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.) for 4 days, and virtual training for 4 hours (1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.) for 3 days. Upcoming trainings will be restructured to focus more time on ways to engage industry and community partners by providing the survey results and WBL challenges and barriers information in a PDF format that they will receive 2 weeks before the training. This information will still be covered, but it will be provided as a summary overview during the training.

Conclusion

As the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (2020) continues pushing states to provide more WBL experiences in public secondary CTE programs, it is necessary to ensure that the quality of these WBL experiences for students and industry/ community partners in FCS programs are sustainable for years to come. Additionally, by providing a continuum of WBL experiences for FCS students from middle school through high school, they will make better-informed career and postsecondary education decisions beyond high school. Furthermore, employers appreciate interviewing prospective employees who have relevant work experience in entry-level positions. By having FCStrained students participate in WBL experiences that provide simulated workplaces and/or on-thejob training, employers will have a qualified pool of employees to choose from in the future.

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