College & Career Readiness: Preparedness for Higher Learning

Last week, in the first post of our series on College and Career Readiness, we discussed the importance of college and career readiness in every student’s educational journey, as well as how Edmentum characterizes each term.

In this post, we will dive into college readiness specifically and discuss some strategies teachers can leverage in their classrooms to help students prepare for postsecondary learning. College environments are very different from high school classrooms, and readiness for them is key for many students’ future success; in fact, recent research from Georgetown University found that by 2020, 65% of jobs will require some postsecondary training. Here are five ways that teachers can start preparing their students to be college ready today:

1. Mimic the college environment

One of the biggest changes with collegiate learning is the classroom environment. In postsecondary environments, most classrooms are modeled in a lecture hall style. This means that students receive teacher instruction two to three days a week (these sessions include discussions, small-group activities, etc.) and work independently (often in a lab or discussion group) the other two to three days. Incorporating this format into your own classroom and getting students acclimated to this learning style will help ease the transition into college.

2. Provide project-based learning opportunities

Learning opportunities outside of the classroom provide powerful, real-world knowledge. And, these experiences can teach a healthy work ethic, perseverance, and dependability—all necessary skills to develop self-managing learners, which is exactly what college is about.

3. Develop self-managing learners

Being able to effectively manage time is crucial to success in college, and for high school students who are used to being highly scheduled and provided with a lot of oversight, this can be a challenging skill to develop. Help your students understand how to properly pace themselves. Need some best practices for promoting time management? Check out this blog post.  

4. Infuse CTE content into your lessons

Utilizing career and technical education (CTE) material in core courses can help make learning more engaging and encourage students to make real-world connections. For example, applying the concepts from a course in applied medical terminology into your core English courses can help spark the connection of why you are asking your students to learn the content. Edmentum Courseware can help you get started by providing an extensive CTE and core course library, as well as the functionality to create customized content. Quickly restructure courses and add custom content to create unique and personalized assignments with a few clicks.

5. Provide guidance with the application process

Sometimes, the prospect of applying to postsecondary programs can be the hardest part! Talk to your students about what the application actually entails, and support their application efforts by connecting them with guidance counselors and after-school programs in your district. And, there are plenty of great online resources that can provide college checklists, deadline information, and FAQs to share with students.

Preparing your students to be college ready doesn’t have to feel like an overwhelming task! Implementing a few changes to your classroom processes and lesson delivery and shifting your students’ mindsets can yield great success. Don’t miss the final post in this series for more tips focused on the other side of the equation: career readiness. In the meantime, check out our industry-leading CTE library for high-quality online courses to supplement your curriculum!