Sponsored by the Penn State Professional Personnel Development Center for Career and Technical Education, in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Cooperative Education Association (PCEA), the conference was held at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. It showed 142 Pennsylvania teachers, school administrators and counselors how they can serve as a strong resource in career exploration and development. All are involved in cooperative education, which connects classroom learning with work-based learning experiences.
The keys to these educators’ success are communication and knowledge, Carol Watson, PCEA president, said.
“We work with students, parents and area employers, so the conference is a great way to refine communication skills,” Watson said. “We also provide the latest information on many other issues, including child labor laws, planning and conducting effective employer visits, and preparing students for postsecondary education.”
While cooperative education may be associated with vocational-technical schools, its presence is also growing in all high schools. Teachers build links with area employers to create internships, apprenticeships and workplace mentors, and they also teach employability skills. Students become part-time employees and receive high school credit while earning competitive wages.
Watson sees the annual conference as a lifeline to a teacher’s success in guiding students through career exploration and development.
She worked with Conferences and Institutes, Penn State Division of Continuing Education, and a panel of PCEA volunteers to organize the conference. Penn State was chosen as the conference site because of its reputation as a workforce education resource, she said. The University is one of only three higher education institutions, along with Temple University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, involved in cooperative education teaching and research.
One faculty member, Dr. Richard Walter, associate professor of education, has been involved with the Pennsylvania Cooperative Education Association since its inception in 1978, and he also served as the academic chair of the conference.
“One of the most enjoyable things I do is teach courses on cooperative education certification,” Walter said. “We’re here to show teachers how to help kids make decisions about future careers based on facts, not opinions.”
He presented some facts about the changing Pennsylvania economy, noting there is a growing emphasis on “gold-collar” jobs — technical positions that require some postsecondary education, but no baccalaureate degree. Many of these positions will have annual salaries of more than $25,000. Examples include desktop publishing specialists, human service workers, physical and correction therapists and legal secretaries, among others.
While these jobs should not be pushed on students, he said, teachers can use this information to present a more complete picture of the economy.
“The emphasis has always been on getting students into four-year degree programs, and then have them worry about a career later,” Walter added. “Many of these kids leave college with a sizeable debt and unmatchable skills — they could float around for years from job to job. Students make better decisions about future careers as they explore the workplace.”
Other conference presenters spoke about student leadership development and job shadowing or presented updates from the state Department of Education and the Pennsylvania College of Technology. According to Watson, a topic of great interest for teachers was how to comply with child labor laws. Additional roundtables focused on youth apprenticeships, student portfolio development and public relations, among others.
Conference participants also learned about the state’s need to address accountability within this field, particularly through testing occupational competency. Required under federal law, such testing measures the skills of students enrolled in cooperative education programs.
Cooperative education teachers must take a proactive approach as they familiarize themselves with their communities’ employment outlook, and this task can seem daunting even to many education professionals, Watson said. Sylvia Montgomery of Philadelphia is one of them. She is director of career services for the ninth grade at Mercy Vocational High School, the only Catholic vo-tech school in the country. She attended the conference to gain a better understanding of her new role.
“I’m responsible for 300 students, and I’m facing many challenges,” Montgomery said. “I want to make changes for the better. That’s why I came to this conference. I want to learn the fundamentals of starting a cooperative education program to present to my school.”
Helen O’Brien, a family consumer science teacher and cooperative education coordinator at the Crestwood School District (between Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton), attended her second Cooperative Education Conference to keep up-to-date on changing laws and the roles of cooperative education.
“I like networking with other educators in this field,” O’Brien said. “Cooperative education has just been opened to my district’s comprehensive high school, not just the vo-tech, so it keeps me busy. That’s why my colleagues’ support is so important.”
An outreach program of the Penn State Professional Personnel Development Center for Career and Technical Education, College of Education, and Pennsylvania Cooperative Education Association
