Learn how to help teachers create relevance to real-world applications by integrating business and industry into the classroom to help students understand why they're learning the content and skills in their classrooms and ensure all students have equitable access to diverse career opportunities.
Creating professional learning experiences for teachers tied to career-connected topics is essential for several reasons. Helping teachers create relevance to real-world applications helps students understand WHY they are learning the content and skills in their classrooms. To make this a reality and to create authentic experiences, teachers need to gain a deeper understanding of how the content and skills they teach are applied in real-world contexts. This enables them to design lessons and activities that are more authentic and engaging, helping students see the relevance of their learning and how it connects to potential career paths. Based upon the grade level, these lessons could move from exploration to application.
Providing students with a purpose for learning and beginning to consider their future can foster student engagement and through career exploration and application students can begin to look at school differently. They can not be what they can not see and as educators our task is to help them see what they can be. When teachers incorporate career-connected topics into their instruction, students are more likely to engage in learning that is meaningful and aspirational. Teachers can introduce students to career opportunities they may not have considered, helping to broaden potential horizons and helping create more career certainty for their future over time.
To support teachers in creating these opportunities and becoming comfortable in doing so, it is important to use professional learning opportunities to bridge the gap between education and workforce needs. Business and industry leaders bring insight into the skills, technologies, and competencies that are in demand in the workforce. By integrating this knowledge into teacher professional learning, educators can better prepare students for the future, equipping them with transferable skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptability. When we think of this, it is important that we think of ALL educators, as they are educating ALL students.
Collaborations with business and industry leaders foster valuable relationships between schools and local communities. These partnerships can lead to mentorship opportunities, internships, and hands-on projects for students. These relationships can provide continued support for educators in aligning curricula with evolving industry trends and potentially providing experiential learning opportunities for teachers and school leaders.
Access to career-connected learning and the perspectives of industry leaders helps educators bring equitable opportunities to all students, including underrepresented groups, ensuring that every student is exposed to diverse career pathways and future possibilities. These opportunities can be created aligning with academic standards to help integrate into the current curricula.
What can these experiences look like?
- Educator-Externship Programs: These can be multi-day immersive experiences where teachers spend time working with businesses, industries, or organizations in their community. Through this experience, teachers develop insights to design and implement more authentic, career-connected lessons.
- Panel Discussions with Industry Leaders: Panelists share their career paths, essential skills, and advice for preparing students for the future workforce. The panelists can often represent various fields (e.g., engineering, business, healthcare, tech) and share common and specific skills and knowledge needed for students to succeed.
- Site Visits and Fieldwork: These can be one-day visits to businesses, labs, factories, or community organizations that align with curriculum goals. Educators can tour a manufacturing plant or research lab to see processes like robotics in action. They could potentially engage in Q&A sessions with employees to understand how their roles align with the skills students are learning in school. Through these opportunities, teachers learn concrete examples to connect classroom content and instruction with industry practices.
- Career-Connected Learning Workshops: These workshops could be co-lead by a curriculum leader and industry expert focused on integrating real-world problems into classroom learning and instruction. Educators could work in teams to design a project-based learning (PBL) unit centered on a career or industry (e.g., designing a sustainable building like an architect or creating a marketing plan like a business analyst).
These are some ideas to begin building bridges and relationships to support workforce development and professional learning in every classroom in every school. My next blog post will dive deeper into these models with practical ideas for making these happen and an important part of a professional learning plan for all educators.
This article is part of a series on building a future-focused blueprint. Click below to read parts 1 and 3:
About the Author:
Dr. David L. Reese serves as Chief Academic Officer for Defined Learning. During the past twenty years, Dr. Reese has served K-12 students as a science teacher, Curriculum Specialist, and Central Office Administrator. He has taught Masters and Doctoral courses in all areas of curriculum and professional development leadership. His work focuses on providing students with engaging, relevant learning opportunities designed to encourage students to apply content from a local, national, and international perspective.
