Contextualization: A Powerful Strategy

for Career and College Readiness

Community College/Workforce Development Transformation

Kickoff—January 30, 2012Judith C. Taylor

Launched in 2004 with multi-year funds from the CS Mott Foundation

Goal: to demonstrate that adults with math and/or reading skills at 8th grade level or below could attain post secondary technical credentials

Started with 6 funded demonstration community colleges and an additional number of colleges whose costs for attending 2/year peer learning meetings were supported

Background: The Breaking Through Initiative

Breaking Through focused on four “high-leverage” strategies to help low skilled adults advance to and through post secondary education

The first strategy was “accelerate the pace of learning.” By 2009, when we got funding to produce a Practice Guide, it was clear to us that contextualization was the most widely used and well-developed acceleration strategy.

Background: The Breaking Through Initiative

Describe several different examples of contextualization from Breaking Through—ask questions at any time

Group Discussion◦ Your input into the RFP that the Commonwealth

will put out to identify a contractor(s) to develop the contextualized curricula

◦ Find out who would like to serve on an advisory committee for the curriculum development

Today’s Agenda

A funded demonstration site Industry: construction Goal: Recruit TANF recipients and parolees

to train for jobs in Albuquerque’s fast-growing construction industry

Method: Two 6 week “bridge” program created jointly by Developmental and Technical faculty with the goal of enrollment in for-credit construction trades or employment

Central New Mexico CC

Challenge: Many of the students recruited to the construction program brought significant baggage that could easily have resulted in missing classes, dropping out, etc.

Solution: CNM had included an “Achievement Coach” in its proposal design.

This is where we first learned how important the role of a supporting coach is.

Central New Mexico CC

A funded demonstration site Industry: health care Goal: prepare low-income students (mainly TANF)

to work as LPNs in 18 months Method: Two new “Fast Track” programs that ran

concurrently, one technical and the other in basic skills delivered by the Developmental dept. Three semesters’ work were compressed into one semester (math and reading) contextualized for health care.

Southeast Arkansas CC (SEARK)

Challenge: Some students at SEARK made a career out of taking college classes because it maintained their TANF eligibility—and had trouble adjusting to the rapid pace and rigorous standards of Fast Track.

Solution: Because the program was designed around a cohort model, students were able to drop back to the cohort behind them; this kept them in the program but gave them some flexibility.

Southeast Arkansas CC (SEARK)

A learning college (no implementation $$) Industry: multiple Goal: Prepare Basic Skills (ABE) students for

entry to the College’s credit technical programs

Method: Develop contextualized curricula for 5 high-demand industry sectors in the region(health care, transportation, IT, etc.).

Davidson County CC (N.C.)

Challenge: Most Basic Skills students were adults who had been laid off by factories in the region. They had diverse career goals, identified through DCCC’s extensive assessment program.

Solution: : Basic Skills staff met with technical department heads to identify skill expectations, then obtained textbooks from which they extracted sections pertinent to the Basic Skills curriculum (e.g., fractions, paragraph construction). These pages are arranged by topic in 3-ring binders so Basic Skills instructors can pull out lesson material contextualized by industry.

Davidson County CC

A demonstration site Industry: welding (among others) Goal: develop a pathway for low skilled

adults laid-off by surrounding factories so they could achieve credentials, even degrees, in a high-demand field

Method: A variety of just-in-time strategies to strengthen basic skills when they were needed

Owensboro Technical and Community College (KY)

First challenge: many workers’ math skills were so low that they couldn’t meet the 9th grade math standard required for non-credit welder’s helper.

Solution: Short-term, intensive math instruction contextualized to welding just prior to start-date of welder’s helper class.

Owensboro Technical and Community College (KY)

Second challenge: Many students who scored above the prerequisite math level had no facility in areas essential for welding—arcs and angles, for example.

Second solution: “Pull-out” sessions with basic skills instructors were designed specifically on the problematic topic, with fully contextualized materials, for the students in question.

Owensboro Technical and Community College (KY)

A later demonstration site Industry: health care (among others) Goal: Create a pathway from Basic

Skills/non-credit into for-credit nursing. Method: Created a partnership between the

non-credit ABE/technical area and the nursing department, facilitated by an influential dean. Luckily, the Dean of Nursing was very open and flexible.

South Texas College (McAllen)

Creating Pathways for Adults with Limited English Proficiency

Juan Carlos AguirreLuzelma G. Canales

Elizabeth HernandezGretchen Wells

October 20, 2009

Collaborative Approach

Workforce Solutions◦Funding

Jobs for the Future◦Technical Assistance

Community Based Organization (VIDA)◦Support Services

South Texas College◦Noncredit to Credit Pathways

ADN/RN$19 - $25/hr

LVN$15.00/hr

PCA Certificate$11.00/hr

Phlebotomy$10.00/hrMedicatio

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$9.50/hrCNA

GED Complete

TSI Complete

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© 2009 South Texas College

CNA Nursing Home $7.50 to $8.00/hrCNA Hospital $8.00 - $8.50/hr

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College Ready Acade

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CNA to RN Pathway

CNA to RN Noncredit to Credit Articulation

Contextualization is a powerful strategy to motivate students to succeed while showing them why academic skills they are studying are needed to function effectively in their jobs/careers.

At the same time, students can find contextualized classes daunting, especially at first, because they’re being asked to master two types of material at the same time.

Learnings from Contextualization Efforts in Breaking Through

“Scaffolding” learning can help lower-skill students succeed in contextualized classes. Two examples: providing career-specific vocabulary prior to the lesson the terms will be used in; exposing students to portions of texts or tasks they will experience in higher-level classes.

Several schools—e.g., SEARK—expected math to be the biggest problem for their low skilled students, but instead found that reading and understanding technical writing were more challenging.

Learnings from Contextualization Efforts in Breaking Through

The Massachusetts grant includes funds for a contractor(s) to develop contextualized remedial curriculum.

The RFP is still under development. Your input is needed.

We’re going to ask each table to take ten minutes to discuss what you think should be the key qualifications/elements of this RFP.

But first—here are some questions to get you started.

MACCWDTA: RFP to Develop Contextualized Curricula

There are several broad areas in which the contractor should have experience and expertise:

Technical/academic curriculum development.

Format Professional development.

Preliminary Thinking—RFP Categories

Have you, or others in your college, developed contextualized curricula already?  Would you be wiling to share the curricula?  Contribute your expertise?

What’s more important: technical expertise or educational methodology?

Technical & academic curriculum development

How should the curriculum be designed to be useful to you?

There’s a real range in curriculum, from very detailed to little detail. What should the contractor be asked to provide?

How about scripts for the instructor? Examples of classroom activities? Links to readings for students?

Format

What kind of support/professional development would help you use the new curricula in your classroom?

Would periodic follow-up support be helpful? If so, what form would it take? How frequent?

Professional Development

Please take 10 minutes to discuss these issues among yourselves.

Select the one (or two) RFP requirements that the group decides is most important to this project’s success.

Write the requirement(s) you selected on one of the cards on your table.

I’ll ask some of you to share your ideas; all the cards will be collected.

Table Discussion

This group will meet monthly once a contractor is selected.

Until then, a small group of volunteers will be asked to review the RFP development—the group will be chaired by Anne Serino and Phil Sisto.

If you’d like to volunteer for this group, please write your name on a card and give it to one of us.

Wrap Up and Final Thoughts

Massachusetts Community Colleges and Workforce Development Transformation Agenda (MCCWDTA) is 100% funded by a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration TAACCCT. Grant Agreement #TC-22505-11-60-A-25. This workforce solution was funded by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. The solution was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, express or implied, with respect to such information, including any information on linked sites and including, but not limited to, accuracy of the information or its completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability, or ownership. This solution is copyrighted by the institution that created it. Internal use, by an organization and/or personal use by an individual for non-commercial purposes, is permissible. All other uses require the prior authorization of the copyright owner. Massachusetts Community Colleges are equal opportunity employers. Adaptive equipment available upon request for persons with disabilities. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/