PRO GRAM SP OTL IGHT Career Academy (continued) country in their career of interest and availability of different careers; and, students are able to connect and interact with various professionals from their own communities. The SENCAP project is the first of its kind in the state that is serving multiple school districts in outstate Nebraska. To best serve the needs of the students, we have broken down the service area (which encompasses seven different counties) into four Regions. The “hub” for each of these Regions include; York— Western, Crete—Central, Lincoln—Eastern, and Wahoo—Northern. Students travel twice a week to these centralized communities to take classes from SCC. The other three days of the week students are back in the home schools working on their assignments from the Student Portfolios. During the past two years of delivering the Career Academies we have found that the academic achievement and knowledge of our students is considerably enhanced when our young people
are actively engaged in career experiences in their field of interest. The relativity and applicability of what they learn becomes more meaningful and useful as students move beyond their high school years. The 21st Century High School research has shown that one of the strategies that significantly impacts preparing high schools for the future is when they are participating in some type of career development program. Learning is enhanced when it is organized around what students should know and be able to do after high school – both in higher education and in the workplace. This is precisely what the Southeast Nebraska Career Academy Partnership does for our students. It is exciting to be partnering with schools and organizations in the SENCAP Program who see the importance of being directly involved with career education. A program that actively engages students in their learning, provides opportunities for both high school and college credit, allows first hand career
experiences through job shadowing, takes numerous field trips to visit workplaces and interact with professionals, promotes active, hands-on learning, and, positions students to be better prepared for the future that faces them. I am pleased to share that several schools across the state of Nebraska are beginning to get actively involved in providing career education opportunities for their students. If you are interested in learning more about SENCAP and our Career Academy Program you can contact me at ESU #6 (rnelson@esu6.org) or call me at 402-761-3341. I
Evaluation Instrument (from page 6) uations" (Retrieved January 5, 2010, from NoBox Inc. website: http://noboxinc.com /framework/index.html). While the Framework for PC software is a wonderful evaluation tool, it also has the potential to be a tool that can be used to generate professional conversations among practitioners as they seek to enhance their skill in the complex task of teaching. With appropriate administrative and teacher training, the development of a common understanding of the framework occurs. This common understanding allows the framework to become an instrument of growth rather than just an evaluation tool. This common understanding can also
be used as the foundation of a school or district’s mentoring, coaching, professional development, and teacher evaluation processes. By doing so, these programs are linked together and results in teachers becoming more thoughtful practitioners. We are only in the first year of our new evaluation process, but we have been impressed with the “Framework for PC” software. Combined with our focus on professional development for teachers in other areas of the evaluation process, we are very optimistic that the processes will lead to improved student achievement for all our students. If you are interested in
learning more about the software or our evaluation process, please feel free to contact me or you may also visit: http://noboxinc.com/framework/index.html for further information about the software. Danielson, C. (2007). Enhancing professional practice: A framework for teaching. Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. I
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