Work-based learning: Help us to help you
What is the value of an experience? We can all remember an experience that had a lasting impact on us, one that perhaps opened our eyes to new possibilities for the future or even set the trajectory for our career.
Such experiences are had each and every day by students who participate in career technical education through workbased learning opportunities.
Defined as “an education strategy that provides students with real-life work experience where they can apply academic and technical skills as well as develop their employability,” work-based learning experiences take the career field education delivered in career technical programs and make it come alive.
As powerful as career-technical education is to teach students hands-on skills and competencies, there is no replacement for a student participating in a real-life workplace. In this experience students not only learn appropriate workplace behaviors through observing adult mentors, but they are also exposed to jobs they were previously unfamiliar with that could then become their future career aspiration. Some studies even show that a student with a paid internship has a 4 times greater chance of successful employment due to the fact that “a work ethic is learned at work.” In short, career technical education coupled with work-based learning opportunities has the potential to change a student’s life in so many positive ways.
Powerful examples of workbased learning can be found every day in career technical education. Just some of the many examples happening in the Kettering Fairmont Career Tech Center include: automotives students who leave school early each day to work in automotive dealerships and service facilities, engineering students working in advanced manufacturing companies to develop parts for innovative machines, digital design students interning at local design companies to contribute ideas for ad campaigns and early childhood education students working every day in local preschools. In all of these examples the career center and the business have partnered together to shape students into the ideal candidates for that specific industry, with many of these interns then being hired as adult employees upon graduation.
So many great opportunities for work-based learning currently exist, but we are always in need of more companies who are willing to expose students to the realities of the workplace. By agreeing to partner with a career center to allow a student to intern at your workplace, companies are not only impacting that student but are also potentially bringing on an employee for life. Help us to help you by stepping up to take a role in shaping the future career of a young person today.