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Success Stories


Career Portfolios Reinforce Literacy, Ensure Success


All students at Wes Watkins Technology Center (WWTC) in Wetumka, Oklahoma, develop career portfolios that showcase their academic and career/technical knowledge and skills, experiences in a career field, career planning and job qualifications. Graduates say the portfolios really work: "The letters and assignments I wrote for my portfolio helped me make an A on my first college essay," one former student said. "Someone with identical skills was applying for the job I wanted, but my portfolio helped me get hired," another graduate said.

The students' portfolios contain a wide range of materials, such as a résumé, school and work-based learning samples, evidence of achievement and recognition, letters of recommendation, and career correspondence. All of the pieces show that the student has mastered the use of information and communication skills; basic grammar and comprehension; and the collection, organization, management and evaluation of information.

Natalie Kennedy, a surgical technology instructor, says her students put surgical case reports, work folders, and chronological and paragraph summaries of surgical procedures in their portfolios. Students in other career fields build similar portfolios that highlight their educational and work-based experiences. When students complete their portfolios, they go through a mock interview and answer career-based questions. Students say it helps greatly to have a portfolio to display in an interview. "It gives them more confidence in their knowledge and skills if they can show the interviewer what they have accomplished," Kennedy said.

(Adapted from the SREB report Quality Career/Technical Programs Prepare Students to Succeed in a New, More Challenging Economy; 08V23w)



Center Joins TCTW, Launches Senior Project


Winston County Technical Center (WCTC) in Double Springs, Alabama, enrolls 436 students from four home high schools and offers nine career/technical programs. When the center received a grant to join TCTW, it kicked off its participation by implementing a senior project.

The project called for seniors to interview professionals in business, health care or other career fields (matching what they were studying at the center), write a paper about the career field, create a PowerPoint program, and make an oral presentation to experts from the community. Students were told to use a job-interview format, as if they were making a real presentation in a real business setting. Judges were given guidelines and score sheets to rate such things as students' knowledge of the career field, the quality of their presentations, and how seriously they took the project.

The senior project is a major component in the center's efforts to increase rigorous academics in career/technical courses. Students are given lessons on how to write a research paper, how to conduct a job interview, how to prepare résumés and applications, and how to make PowerPoint presentations at each stage of the senior project.

The center's advisory council has been very active in helping the school to meet the higher standards of TCTW, including serving as interviewers and judges and awarding certificates in connection with the senior project. The council is composed of business and industry leaders, elected officials, postsecondary instructors, parents and former WCTC students. The council president accompanied center leaders and teachers to the HSTW Staff Development Conference in Nashville in July 2008.

(Adapted from the SREB report Quality Career/Technical Programs Prepare Students to Succeed in a New, More Challenging Economy; 08V23w)

Baking Instructor Cooks Up a Batch of Literacy Skills


Instructor Linda Grim of the Retail Commercial Baking Program at Bethlehem Area Vocational Technical School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, lists the benefits of literacy to her students as she would the ingredients in a favorite dish: higher scores; better attendance and behavior; larger postsecondary enrollment; stronger work ethic; and better reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The focus on literacy is a major reason that 100 percent of students in the program earned National Occupational Competency Testing Institute (NOCTI) certification in 2007-2008, Grim said.

 Each day begins with a five-minute team talk in which students take turns sharing inspirational quotations from sources such as Bits & Pieces magazine. The class practices listening to the speaker, writing the quotation and their reactions in a journal, and discussing their interpretations and opinions. At the end of the quarter, students write an essay on their favorite quotation. Grim encourages students to think of the essay as a "great meal." The opening is the appetizer, the body is the entrée, and the closing is the dessert.

Grim has also found a place for motivational texts in her classroom. In addition to building literacy skills, Grim says the activity increased the unity of students, improved teamwork and created excitement in the classroom. Students in the baking program also read newspapers, trade magazines and cookbooks.

(Adapted from the SREB report Integrated Academic and Career/Technical Learning Shows Real-Life Applications of Education; 08V24w)
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