Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Business & Information Technology educators are frequently tasked at this time of year with researching trends that may guide future changes to curriculum and program activities. Using data specific to industries, jobs, degrees, and professional articles can help school staff better understand the community relationship that reflect the economy, health/safety, diversity, education, and housing/living. Past EdBITS posts such as Business & Information Technology Education Labor Market Information (May 15, 2018) have highlighted state resources such as Wisconsin's Job Center website. As educators work to expand their understanding of labor market information, data available through Data USA links users to US Government data in one comprehensive site that is rich with advanced data analytics and visualizations. Start on your data journey by simply viewing the data for your school community to better understand the relationship with many your regional stakeholders. The short video embedded below highlights the significance of this resource that can support discussions at the students, teacher, and administrative levels. Although data alone is likely not the driving force behind changes to curriculum and program activities, the data may help to inspire self-reflection and spur discussions with career and technical education advisory councils that are critical to a school's development, implementation and refinement of program of studies.
Note:The program of study (POS) is a locally defined sequence of instruction and opportunities available at a school for a specific career pathway. As part of federal Carl D. Perkins grant funding for Career & Technical Education programming, each POS is based on a set of similar knowledge and skills required for career success in a broad career pathway field of study. These POS course outlines provide an excellent template for personalizing an Academic and Career Plan (ACP) by outlining recommended courses and co-/extra-curricular opportunities to explore as part of ACP service delivery.