Work-Based Learning Program Overview

Why Work-Based Learning?

Nationally, 65% of all jobs, and 70% of jobs in Illinois require some post-secondary education or training. Currently 50% of Illinois residents have a high-quality post-secondary college or career credential. To support the closure of this gap, Chicago Public Schools will invest in research-validated programming designed for career exploration, experience, and attainment. Part of this model will include the leveraging of work-based learning activities that help students make informed post-secondary choices, plan for their education pathways, and accelerate actionable steps leading to post-secondary success.

The Chicago Public Schools’ approach in supporting students in career-related programs of study is the deliberate focus on the three facets of student achievement needed for success in the labor force: the acquisition and application of core academic, technical, and employability skills. Regardless of industry, employers consistently underscore that students must have experience and mastery in all three areas, with a growing priority on the development of employability skills.

Alongside efforts to enhance the rigor and effectiveness of classroom instruction, new approaches are required to deliver authentic workplace experiences such as Guest Speakers, Career Days, Site Visits, Job Shadowing, Mock Interviews, Team Workplace Challenges, Internships, Pre- and Youth Apprenticeships and other Work Experiences in partnership with employers. This toolkit has been developed to help teachers, their intermediary support providers, and employer partners deliver educationally rich and authentic experiences across the work-based learning continuum.

Purpose

High-quality Work-Based Learning provides opportunities for the acquisition of academic, technical and workplace professional skills among students engaged in career-related programs or courses of study in CPS CTE programs. Regardless of industry, employers consistently underscore that new workers must have experience and mastery in all three skill areas, with a growing priority on the development of essential employability skills.

To support students in developing these skills, authentic workplace experiences are important when combined with academic study, classroom training, and other college and career-readiness activities. Guest Speakers, Career Days, Career Mentoring, Site Visits, Informational Interviews, Job Shadowing, Mock Interviews, Team-Based Challenges, and Career Development Experiences provide real-world context and the opportunity to learn about the workplace and prepare for the future. Providing authentic workplace experiences and bringing employers into the classroom as part of the career development process can create powerful learning experiences and deepen the educational experience for students.

Work-Based Learning activities engage the employer as both a customer and a partner, providing developmental experiences for students in the workplace while helping build the future workforce. These experiences augment school-based classroom activities and offer students the opportunity to learn about potential careers and to practice and demonstrate essential employability and technical skills.

Organization

Four documents provide the foundation for creating and implementing high-quality Work-Based Learning activities for CPS high school students. They include the following:

Quality Work-Based Learning provides an introduction to the principles of and the foundation for developing any Work-Based Learning experience. This document includes definitional standards for WBL and describes the benefits of participation to students, schools, employers, and community.
The Work-Based Learning Continuum provides an overview of the State of Illinois’ WBL continuum and includes broad definitions for WBL experiences in Career Awareness, Career Exploration, Career Preparation, and Career Development. The document includes identification of the range of Work-Based Learning activities across the continuum—whether conducted in the classroom, the workplace, or community.
Indicators of High Quality Work-based Learning is taken from Association of Career and Technical Education. These are the essential design elements to be applied to support and enhance the implementation and educational value of any WBL experience.
Recommended Technical and Essential Employability Competencies adopted by the State of Illinois, identifies the skills to be taught and demonstrated through any WBL experience. Demonstrating these skills, combined with meeting the necessary academic and occupational skill requirements for a particular job or position, indicates a student’s readiness to enter an industry or pursue further education.

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Benefits

For Students

Through work-based learning activities, students build awareness of potential careers in a particular industry and can explore options and start preparing for their future. Work-based learning provides opportunities for hands-on learning and the development of relationships with professional adult role models. Participating students acquire experience and build core employability and occupational skills while learning about the training or education required to succeed in specific careers. They are better able to understand real-world applications of academics and occupational training, and can answer the question, “Why do I need to learn this?”

By integrating a range of workplace exposures and experiences with school-based activities and guidance over time, students will often set their sights higher than an immediate job and are likely to remain committed to their education through completion of their personal and career-related goals.

For Employers

Participation in Work-Based Learning offers an effective and appropriate vehicle for employers to help build and retain their future workforce. Employers report increasing mismatch between the skills required for entry into their industry and those of the emerging workforce. By opening their place of business to students and providing high-value Work-Based Learning opportunities, employers can benefit from productive student work or gain a new perspective on an issue or a problem. Employers can observe potential future employees in a “long-term interview” context and participate in shaping their future workforce. Students also provide access to a customer resource and point of view.

For Schools

Work-Based Learning extends the classroom to the workplace and brings employer volunteers into the school and classroom. It helps build awareness of industry-identified skills to incorporate in the classroom curriculum among educators and validates curriculum instructional models. It provides touchstones in authentic workplaces to help make classroom learning relevant and helps schools and programs build relationships with the community. WBL also provides opportunities for networking and relationship-building to promote future collaboration with employer partners.

For the Community

Work-Based Learning activities connect the community to schools and local economic development efforts, promote civic engagement, and help address community priorities and issues. Students complete community projects and are visible as productive and contributing community members of society. WBL also helps grow a more productive and committed workforce, and demonstrates a commitment from schools and employers to provide opportunities for local citizens.

CPS has identified a set of essential elements to support the implementation of all Work-Based Learning experiences. Teachers and Work-Based Learning Coordinators can use these program planning standards to ensure that all activities are engaging, safe and learning rich.

Conduct Effective Planning
- Set clear goals and expectations for all parties
- Ensure activity is developmentally appropriate (age, stage and grade)
Prepare for Success
- Prepare students, teachers and employers
- Address logistics
Identify Student Learning Objectives
- Align to technical and essential employability skills
- Link to college-readiness skills and academic standards
Create Authentic and Engaging Experiences
- Support effective participation of employers
- Provide hands-on and project-based activities when possible
Connect to Careers
- Provide for exploration in a field of interest and exposure to a range of potential career options
- Provide exposure to authentic work-world experiences
Support Student Growth
- Connect to an individualized career or training plan
- Promote student interaction with adult professionals and industry experts
Ensure Activities are Safe and Legal
- Address child labor laws, OSHA, Workers Compensation, and the Fair Labor Standards Act (including pay and/or course credit when required)
- Reflect workplace norms, including safety and regulations
Provide Ongoing Support
- Provide orientations and support for all parties
- Ensure that Work-Based Learning is appropriately staffed
Provide for Reflection, Presentation and Feedback
- Support student self-assessment, reflection and presentation
- Provide opportunities for formal and informal feedback among all parties
Connect to the Student’s Next Step
- Connect the experience to the classroom
- Intentionally sequence with future Work-based Learning experiences
Assess and Document the Experience
- Document student participation and learning
- Assess activity effectiveness

Quality work-based learning consists of activities that provide participants with the ability to practice and enhance the skills and knowledge gained in their program of study or industry training program, as well as the ability to develop employability. Quality WBL also includes an assessment and recognition of acquired knowledge and skills. These activities occur at a workplace, providing structured learning experiences for students through exposure to a range of occupations and career options, and classroom or community activities that incorporate employers as speakers, advisors, instructors, or career mentors. WBL allows students to build a bridge from adolescent roles in the classroom to adult roles in professional settings.

Students learn by observing and/or actually doing real work. Learning in the workplace or from industry professionals supports academic learning and promotes the development of essential employability skills.

The State of Illinois’ Recommended Technical and Essential Employability Competencies serve as quality indicators of an individual’s readiness to enter an industry or to pursue further education. Competency statements apply to current industry needs, contain both employability skills and technical skills, and leave opportunity for specialized training and career advancement. Combined with the necessary academic and occupational skills, demonstration of these skills indicates readiness for work.

Competencies are organized into two broad categories: essential employability and technical competencies.

Essential employability competencies, often called employability or “soft” skills, are workplace dispositions and attitudes connected to often-performed work tasks and behaviors. Applicable across many industries and relevant to all work-based learning experiences, employability competencies include the ability to connect industry knowledge to one’s personal efficacy in the workplace. A core element of essential employability competencies also includes entrepreneurial skill sets focused on growth mindset and the ability to innovate in the workplace for both personal and professional pursuits.

Technical competencies relate to specific industry knowledge and skills and the ability to apply that learning in a workplace environment. Taken together, the universal employability competencies and sector-specific technical competencies will inform how professional learning experiences are designed.

Work-Based Learning Specialists, teachers, employer partners and students should consider these Technical and Essential Employability competencies when creating learning objectives for a particular work-based learning activity, or developing assessments to gauge student skill acquisition.

As defined by the Illinois Career Pathways Dictionary, a Career Development Experience is a supervised work experience relating to an individual’s career area of interest that:

Occurs in a workplace or under other authentic working conditions;
Is co-developed by an education provider and at least one employer in the relevant field;
Provides compensation or educational credit to the participant;
Reinforces foundational professional skills including, at a minimum, those outlined in the Essential Employability Skills framework;
Includes a Professional Skills Assessment that assesses skill development and is utilized as a participant feedback tool; and
Takes place for a minimum of 60 total hours.

New Ways To Work

New Ways to Work is a consulting, technical assistance, and training organization that helps communities build comprehensive local youth-serving systems, develop new programs, and improve practice in the organizations that serve young people. New Ways helps create powerful partnerships among government, education, community, philanthropy, and the private sector to provide young people with the opportunities and support they need to prepare for success in career and life, while helping build the future workforce. New Ways has supported the development of work-based learning and employer engagement systems and strategies across the nation since the 1990s.

Grant Associates

Grant Associates is a national, award-winning workforce development company. Since opening their doors in 1997, they have collaborated with government agencies to develop workforce programs and solutions that create the opportunities that advance job seekers, businesses and local economies, all with exceptional results. Grant Associates’ mission is to tailor solutions that build workforce capacity, proving over the past two decades that this approach helps a community reach its true potential. Working under contract with federal, state and local agencies, Grant Associates has served more than 20,000 companies and helped more than 100,000 people define realistic goals, further their education and training, find jobs, and embark on new career paths.

Education Systems Center

The mission of Education Systems Center (EdSystems) is to shape and support education and workforce systems that prepare more young people for productive careers and lives in a global economy. EdSystems leads and manages the Illinois P-20 Council’s College and Career Readiness Committee, which drove the development and adoption of the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act. EdSystems supports communities across Illinois in implementing college and career pathway systems that incorporate high quality work-based learning experiences.

New York Public School System

Adapted with permission from the New York City Department of Education.