The New Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth: An Update Thank you for selecting this presentation to discover more about the new Workplace Readiness Skills for the Commonwealth. During this presentation, you will learn about what has been happening with the New WRS the past year. SHOW the new WRS video. HANDOUTS: WRS/AAI list; WRS poster; UVA “Critical Skills” Report (?) Summer 2011

Employers Want Schools to Teach WRS Who Should Be Responsible for Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills? Workplace readiness skills encompass many personal qualities and attributes that young people should, and many do, learn at home, at church, and in their communities. Schools have a place in teaching these skills as well. The employers surveyed for “Are They Really Ready to Work?” felt strongly that K-12 education has a big role to play in workplace readiness. (They could pick three of the offered options. “Parents” was not on the list of options, but would surely have received a lot of votes.) Source: Are They Really Ready for Work, 2006

The Charge from Employers is Clear Secondary teachers have the responsibility for teaching the WRS. The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has reinforced this by requiring instruction of the new 21 skills in every CTE course. The VDOE and the CTE Resource Center expanded its instructional resources for teaching the WRS. The number preceding each skill is hot-linked to these activities, lessons, and Web sites. Additional resources are added as they are identified.

Ways to Teach the WRS Teachers may wish to cover the WRS in the first few weeks of school or as an instructional unit. Or, instructors can look for course content that might already cover a WRS and teach them together. For example, teaching a task similar to “Explore career and college options for lifelong learning” most likely also addresses WRS # 13 and 14. When evaluating a student’s performance on this course-specific task, the teacher can easily document his or her performance on these two WRS. The CanDo competency tracking system makes recording student performance on multiple tasks very easy. The WRS are part of each course task list, with linked resources embedded into each skill. Resources emphasize student activities so they are easy to customize and plug into curriculum. Some resources have been developed internally, while others have been located in cyberspace and reviewed for inclusion. In addition, linked resources do not repeat from skill to skill, even though some activities could apply to multiple WRS skills. We’ve chosen the best resources we could find, and these resources will continue to improve and grow. We’re also trying to emphasize that there is a natural fit for many, if not all of the WRS within your course-specific tasks. WRS does not need to be viewed as additional, stand-alone curriculum. For example—If you have a task focusing on career and college options for lifelong learning, you are also addressing Lifelong Learning and Job Acquisition and Advancement from the workplace readiness skills. If you have activities and lessons that have worked well in the classroom, we encourage you to submit them for review and possible inclusion.

And . . . A New Industry Credential for the New Workplace Readiness Skills Is a Virginia-specific assessment that addresses all 21 skills Is a stand-alone test (does not have to be combined with any other assessment) Was approved by the Board of Education in March 2011 Was developed by CTECS, the consortium that was a vital part of the research and development of the new 21 skills Is less expensive than most industry credentials ($9.00 per test) Is an industry credential that, when successfully completed, can be used for student-selected verified credit. Note that the test was piloted in Feb/March with eight school divisions. Also CTECS hosted a cut-score meeting with VA teachers to determine the acceptable passing grade.

Questions? CTE Resource Center info@cteresource.org http://cteresource.org 804-673-3778 Thank you for attending this presentation. To request additional copies of the Workplace Readiness Skills classroom poster, please go to our Web site, cteresource.org. For the skills themselves, just see the first 21 tasks in your courses in Verso.