Career Pathways

Crucial to the nation’s economic growth and individuals’ social and personal well-being is the availability of education and training that enables adults to learn new skills, obtain higher paying jobs, and build careers. The primary federal legislation supporting education, training services, and workforce development for adults – the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014– is a catalyst for delivering the types of education, training, and employment services that facilitate adults’ economic and career success. WIOA emphasizes the building and alignment of workforce investment, education, and economic development systems that deliver comprehensive employment, education, and supportive services. These services are expected to enable individuals, particularly those with barriers to employment, to obtain the skills and credentials needed to secure jobs with family-sustaining wages, as well as to provide employers with the skilled workforce needed to succeed in a global economy. WIOA aims to strengthen the U.S. workforce development system by aligning employment, training, and education programs and improving their quality through innovative approaches that address the needs of adults and youth. Career pathways, consistently referenced in WIOA Titles I and II, is an approach that includes innovative policies and practices to facilitate individuals’ education and employment success. The use of a career pathways approach calls for aligned workforce investment, education, and economic development systems at the state and local levels. To obtain this alignment, state and local partners must work together to organize and support the high-quality, coordinated workforce, education, and training services that underlie a career pathways approach. Thus, to assess services that undergird a career pathways approach, state staff must examine the implementation of career pathways; determine professional development services involved; and leverage data to inform new strategic thinking.

This document is designed as a resource for state and local program leaders looking to support the effective implementation of state academic content standards. At the center of this supplement are two checklists. One is the State Leadership Checklist. State staff can use this as a self-assessment to gauge the effectiveness of their state’s implementation of and support for academic standards grounded in research. A second checklist is the Program Leadership Checklist. It is designed for use by both state and local program leaders to help guide the implementation of high-quality standards at the local and regional levels.

Newly-created career videos from CareerOneStop give career explorers, students, and job searchers a portrait of life in hundreds of careers—from Actor to Zoologist. The videos, part of a collection depicting more than 800 careers, bring to life the responsibilities, work settings, and employment trends for a broad range of occupations. The new videos provide updated information and context for career explorers navigating today’s employment world. All career details are based on authoritative occupation and labor market information from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network (O*NET) program and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Check out the entire collection at CareerOneStop.org/Videos, where you can browse videos organized by career cluster, or select “New career videos” to see only the updated collection. Essential facts are shown on screen—including current wages, employment outlook, and education requirements—to give viewers an immediate snapshot of the field. Video transcripts are also available in Spanish.

The federal Workforce Investment and Innovation Act (WIOA) has changed the landscape of adult education, focusing the field squarely on workforce development outcomes and programming that supports the integration of education and training (IET) and career pathways. This guide emerged from efforts to learn how eight adult education programs around the country have been integrating education and training. Many of these programs are making adjustments to conform to WIOA requirements and activities; others are using WIOA as an opportunity to forge new workforce collaborations. Across the board, there is much to learn from what they are doing effectively, what hasn’t worked well, and what they are thinking about going forward. Despite their wide range of contexts, all IET programs face some common realities. One is that the world of work is constantly evolving. New jobs require updated technological skills and a comfort with digital tools; employers are modernizing with green technologies and practices; and industries may rise, fall, or relocate. IET programs need to be nimble in responding to these realities. Illustrated in this guide are programs that continue to revamp their services, employ sectoral approaches that focus on technical skills that transfer across job categories, or rotate their job trainings so that they don’t over-saturate the market with workers who are then left without strong employment options. Another universal reality for IET programs is that this integration of services requires building relationships with and engaging new partners, and collaborating in new ways. The expanded team involved in such a collaboration needs to figure out how to work together and best utilize the strengths of each partner. The profiles in this guide offer a wide array of approaches both in who the adult education programs partner with (e.g. career and technical education (CTE) departments within a college or technical high school, WIOA-authorized training providers, or in-house technical training instructors) and how they collaborate in those partnerships to develop an integrated curriculum. The programs profiled are:

• Asian-American Civic Association (Boston, MA)
• Community Action, Inc. of Central Texas (Austin, TX)
• Eastern Aroostook Adult and Community Education (Caribou, ME)
• Genesis Center (Providence, RI)
• Johnson County Community College (Johnson County, KS)
• LaGuardia Community College (Queens, NY)
• Northeast Mississippi Community College (Booneville, MS)
• Southwest Regional Adult and Continuing Education (Southwest VA)

The Florida Literacy Coalition Health Careers Guide is a targeted resource for adult learners interested in exploring the wide range of career opportunities in health care. Written in plain language, the guide is suitable for learners at a 5th grade reading level or higher as well as for English language learners at an intermediate level or higher. The guide focuses on careers requiring two years or less of training. Providing beneficial information about preparing for a health career, it can be used as a curriculum or a stand-alone resource for students. In addition to providing job skill and training resources, the guide highlights 30 health occupations in four areas: 1) patient care, 2) imaging and diagnostics, 3) administration and support services, and 4) health information and records.

This article overviews four open access online articles that address teaching digital literacy and digital problem solving to adult learners. The four authors--Harris, Quann, Rosen, Vanek--of the articles reviewed, emphasize the need for adult digital literacy instruction that moves beyond teaching adults basic literacy skills so that they leaner skills that are relevant to college and career settings.  Furthering this idea, each article reviewed identifies the need for adult learners to learn how to apply digital skills across a wider set of experiences than testing, drill and practice activities. They also all agree that tasks for teaching digital problem solving should be relevant to learners’ needs and contexts for use outside of the classroom. The reviewers identify key ideas, tips, and strategies for providing adult learners a more robust digital literacy learning experience.  They highlight that basic digital literacy skills can be learned in the context of digital problem solving rather than as gatekeeping skills for more advanced skills, including four categories in the English language learner classroom: basic skills, creating and communicating digitally, finding and evaluating information online, and problem solving in technology rich environments. The reviewers also touch on the role of the teacher, and which tools to use when teaching digital literacy skills. The reviewers propose that transformative learning is more likely to occur when basic skills are are situated in authentic digital problem solving activities, such as locating resources, navigating, creating, and communicating while completing real world learner-centered activities.

Integrated Education and Training (IET) has become a useful strategy to help adult education students and others improve their basic and occupational skills while meeting local workforce development requirements and needs. The resource provides templates, guidance, and tools that will help practitioners plan, design, and implement the basic skills component of an IET curriculum. The resource is designed to enable Title II providers and their training partners to adapt existing curriculum and/or develop new basic skills curriculum to help adult education students successfully complete occupational skills training and move forward on a career path. The focus of this guide is on basic skills rather than occupational skills training curriculum.