Career Pathways

PLTW Research Presentation at Missouri Capitol

Members of the PLTW research team from the UERC, St. Louis University and the University of Missouri-Columbia presented their research at STEM Day at the Missouri Capitol.  The presentation shows rates of enrollment and degree completion in STEM programs in college for Missouri high school students.  The presentation also extends the results of the final PLTW report (click to view final report) by providing more rigorous estimates of the impact of PLTW on STEM enrollment and degree completion in college.

 

 

Year: 2023

Product Type: Report

Focus Areas: Career Pathways

Teachers’ Time Use and Affect Before and After COVID-19 School Closures

For teachers, COVID-19 related school closures resulted in a transformation of many facets of their work, requiring them to take on new and often shifting roles, including learning new technologies and juggling work and home responsibilities. While a number of studies have begun to shed light on how teachers navigated these rapid, unplanned changes to their working conditions, prior research shares a fundamental limitation—most existing studies rely exclusively on evidence collected after schools closed. This paper provides, to the best of our knowledge, the first detailed evidence of teachers’ work before and after schools closed in response to COVID-19. We leverage unique longitudinal data on teachers’ daily work activities and affect collected across the 2019­–2020 school year using the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM). Beginning in fall 2019, participants completed DRMs on up to three timepoints prior to school closures and one additional timepoint in May 2020, after schools had closed. Given the scope of our longitudinal data, we are able to describe in detail, the changes in teachers’ daily work in the initial months of the pandemic.

Year: 2021

Product Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Teachers Work, Career Pathways

Final Report of the Impact of Project Lead the Way on Missouri High School Students

This report examines the potential impact of Project Lead the Way (PLTW) on two cohorts of Missouri students who began high school in 2013 and 2014 (145,619 students).  These students were tracked through high school and into post-secondary education and training programs up to and including academic year 2019-2020.  Thirteen percent of all cohort members enrolled in at least one PLTW course. Students who took PLTW courses outperformed those who did not on all high school and college outcomes examined, and these positive outcomes persisted even after controlling for school and student characteristics, including students’ achievement prior to high school. Differences between students who did and did not take PLTW courses were substantially larger for those who took two or more PLTW courses compared to those taking only a single PLTW course.

Year: 2022

Product Type: Report

Focus Areas: Career Pathways, STEM Education, Postsecondary Education

Envisioning Career Technical Education as a Platform for Teacher Empowerment

This paper describes Teachers and Students for Community Oriented Research and Education (TSCORE), a community-university partnership that focuses on CTE health science teachers and provides pedagogical tools, knowledge, and connections needed to bring local, cutting-edge health disparities research into classrooms. Framed in critical pedagogy, TSCORE delivers 1) teacher empowerment, 2) implementation support, and 3) student conscientization. The CTE partnership project challenges the academic-vocational divide by moving past views of CTE as a job training platform for entry level positions and invites students to experience first-hand how a career in science and research can have a positive impact on the health of their communities.

Year: 2018

Product Type: Journal Article

Focus Areas: Adult Learners, Career Pathways, STEM Education

Essential Skills Study (Webinar)

This webinar, provided to members of the KC STEM Alliance, provides an overview of key findings of the Essential Skills Study.  Participants learned about the gaps in career preparation in six essential skill areas: Communication, Collaboration, Interpersonal, Critical Thinking, Proactivity, and Executive Function. A discussion of the influence of in-school and out-of-school experiences to the development of essential skills is also covered.

Year: 2020

Product Type: Webinar

Focus Areas: Essential Skills/SEL, Career Pathways, STEM Education

Essential Skills Study

What are the essential skills young professionals need to enter and succeed in Kansas City’s regional workplace? The Essential Skills Study explores this question by asking young professionals, 1-5 years into their career, about the skills they utilize most in their current jobs and where they learned those skills. The study, commissioned by The Debruce Foundation with support from KC Rising, KC STEM Alliance, Prep-KC, Workforce Partnership, and the Kauffman Foundation, identifies six essential skills for career readiness. Specific recommendations for educators and employers to support essential skill development are provided at the end of the report.

Year: 2020

Product Type: Report

Focus Areas: Essential Skills/SEL, Career Pathways

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Urban Education Research Center