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A Postsecondary Partner as Your Convening Organization

In existence for over a century, Gateway Technical College (GTC) in Racine, WI, has established a national reputation for industry and education partnerships by leading the way in developing industry certification pathways, dual credit opportunities, innovative teaching and faculty development techniques, and fostering a community of engaged learners.

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Career Academies 101

Ford NGL thinks career academies are a core part of transforming the schooling experience for high school students. So, where do you start learning about them? Right here!

The goals of this webinar are to:

  • Develop a deeper understanding of career academies
  • Build excitement to start building the structure together
  • Answer the question: “What does this mean for me?”
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Ford NGL’s WBL Continuum: The Business Roundtable

Part of Ford NGL’s Work-Based Learning (WBL) Continuum, the Business Roundtable is a low-intensity activity for learning about and from an employer partner. Business Roundtables are a great place to start if you want to create a high-quality experience between employer partners and teachers or students. Discover the key elements of a quality business roundtable and learn how it can be a rewarding experience for all parties involved.

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Ford NGL’s WBL Continuum: The Worksite Tour

Part of Ford NGL’s Work-Based Learning (WBL) Continuum, the Worksite Tour is a medium-intensity activity focused on learning with an employer partner. Worksite Tours create opportunities for deeper connections and more time for exploring the business site and the industry, with employee support. Discover what a quality worksite tour entails and the benefits it provides for all stakeholders involved.

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Foundations of Powerful Partnership Teams

A Powerful Partnership Team is a pathway/academy teacher team (which typically includes core academic teachers, CTE teachers and, often, special education teachers and pathway/academy counselor) AND their high-impact business partners.

This course is about how to best support employer organizations and teachers in building sustainable powerful partnership teams. You’ll get the foundational elements using the Ford NGL Blueprint for Powerful Partnerships.

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The Nuts & Bolts of a Virtual Roundtable Discussions

Welcome to this “extra”, or bonus addition, to our webinar regarding in-person Business Roundtables or Roundtable Discussions. As we hope we demonstrated, we think there is a lot of power and potential in business roundtables for a whole host of reasons. We also think this is a work-based learning (WBL) activity that can work almost as well virtually as it does face-to face.

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Power of PBL

The Power of PBL

This course provides an introduction to the potential power of project-based learning (PBL), which we believe is an important instructional tool for addressing Strand 1 of Ford NGL’s Framework, Transforming Teaching and Learning, and supporting community-connected transformation.

It is the first product in a series focused on learning about, or deepening one’s understanding of, project-based learning. PBL is a foundational element of Ford NGL’s Community-Connected Learning (CCL) product line. 

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What’s An Industry Council and Why Should Every Community Have One?

  • What’s the power behind having industry councils? It is a way to maximize business and industry participation in and with career academies and, more specifically, career pathways within academies.This is particularly important in larger communities where you may have the same or similar academies in multiple high schools, allowing you to effectively utilize business and community resources to support academies across the district that fall within one industry sector.
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Your Portrait of a Graduate: The North Star for Community Connected Transformation

Ford Next Generation Learning (Ford NGL) believes Portraits of a Graduate (PoG) are critical to Community Connected Transformation.

Why is the PoG so critical? Because the PoG IS the north star for a community’s transformation efforts! The PoG helps to steer the community toward a clear outcome and keep all of the systems, structures, processes, curricula, experiences, and – honestly – everything aligned toward ensuring that a community’s graduates will have the knowledge, skills, experiences, and more they need to have a clear career and life plan for themselves the Monday after graduation.

 

In this webinar, you will:

  • Learn what a Portrait of a Graduate is and why it guides a community’s work, K-12.
  • Why a PoG is the “North Star” of your community-connected transformation.
  • Why building an ongoing communication structure for educating stakeholders about the story and ‘Why’ of the PoG will help keep your community’s transformation efforts on a straight and steady path and your PoG at the center of your work.
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Your Steering Committee: Jump-Starting or Refreshing, Revitalizing, Re-empowering It

Whether, as a district leader or member of the convening organization, you are beginning to create your Steering Committee or you are co-chairing your Steering Committee and are ready to give it a Vitamin B12 shot in the arm, this course is a resource for you as you work with your Ford NGL coaches. 

It will (re)ground you in what a Steering Committee is and why it is central to your community-connected transformation efforts, share its key responsibilities and functions, and the course will get you thinking about who should be part of your committee. 

If you need it, the course can also support you as you assess the health of your Steering Committee, re-energize your meetings, and evolve your meetings beyond an information sharing body.

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