Career Clusters: Tool for Seamless Educational Transition

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Career ClustersTool for Seamless Educational
Transition
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Overview

• What are Career Clusters?
• Why Career Clusters?
• What are the Benefits?
• What Resources are Available?
• How Do You Get Started?

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Career Clusters Definition

• Career Clusters represent a grouping of
  occupations and broad industries based on
  commonalities.
• Instructional Guidance Model

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Career Clusters Tool

• A TOOL for seamless educational system that
• Blends rigorous academic/technical preparation
• Provides career planning
• Offers options for students to experience all
  aspects of an industry
• Facilitates/assists students with transitions

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What Career Clusters DO

• Provide a framework that current programs slot
  into
• Provide a framework for seamless education
• Provide MORE career options for learners
• Provide a framework for addressing the entire
  world of work
• Provide a picture of how knowledge and skills
  transfer vertically and horizontally

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What Career Clusters DONT Do

• Do not take away current programs
• Do not take away occupational areas
• Do not track learners into a single job

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Career Clusters Titles

• Agriculture, Food Natural Resources
• Architecture Construction
• Arts, Audio/Video Technology Communications
• Business, Management Administration
• Education Training
• Finance
• Government Public Administration
• Health Science

• Hospitality Tourism
• Human Services
• Information Technology
• Law, Public Safety Security
• Manufacturing
• Marketing, Sales Service
• Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics
• Transportation, Distribution Logistics

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Career Clusters Model

• Organizes the occupations, within each cluster,
  into pathways that group the cluster occupations
  based on commonalities

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Career Clusters Why?

• Career-focused strategy supporting
• Educational reform
• Workforce preparation
• Economic development

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Career Clusters Educational Reform

• Help develop employability, academic and
  technical skills
• Build a repertoire of skills within the broad
  context of a career
• Enhance career guidance and transitions
• Add relevance to the curriculum
• Provide smoother transitions between educational
  levels
• Provide for re-tooling, changing careers

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Career Clusters Workforce Preparation

• Driven by local business/industry and economic
  development
• Prepare the emerging workforce
• Cross-train/re-tool the workforce
• Build a flexible, Gold Collar workforce

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Transition to 21st Century Workplaces

Source Adapted from Schray and Sheets (2002)
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Career Clusters Benefits

• Learners more likely to enroll in rigorous and
  relevant coursework
• Enhanced guidance services through the cluster
  models identification of many careers and their
  pathways
• Aligned linkages from postsecondary education to
  feeder programs
• Learners better equipped for successful career
  transitions

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Resources

• www.okcareertech.org/iis
• www.okcareertech.org/guidance
• www.careerclusters.org
• Preferred Product/Technical Assistance Providers
• Brochures
• Career Cluster Resources CD
• Posters
• Pathway Models
• Plans of Study (see Plan of Study handout)
• Interest Inventories/Surveys
• Assessments Workplace Readiness, Cluster
  Specific
• Annual Career Clusters Institute
• www.careervoyages.com

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Tips for Getting Started

• Use resources to
• Enhance existing programs.
• Strengthen/align programs, courses, and skill
  sets.
• Serve as a career theme for career academies,
  small learning communities, schools within
  schools, charter schools, home schooling and
  magnet schools.