NPOSI Session III

This week we held our third session of the National Programs of Study Institute in Washington DC. The session was held in conjunction with the National Policy Seminar.

It was good to see our fellow facilitators at this facilitator only meeting and to talk about the progress that each state/territory is making with instituting Rigorous Programs of Study.

It was also good to hear of the collaboration beginning to take shape within each. CTE is bringing in departments of education, higher education faculty and instructors, WIB's and others to start the RPOS discussions.

Looking at focus areas, many identified RPOS quality, resources, accountability, buy in (onboarding), terminology and how does CTE help secondary and post-secondary education implement RPOS? The discussion also included much debate on the role of guidance and how does guidance start to align between secondary, CTE and post-secondary, much like we currently align curriculum.

Of the discussion, accountability and buy-in were the two most often repeated themes.


The facilitators also discussed the NPOSI plan more in depth and talked about challenges including time being the biggest obstacle.

As we left, we were challenged to answer the following questions for our state:

What is my state's plan focus?

At the end of the year we want to accomplish what?

To achieve our plan we need to?

By involving groups what opportunities and barriers will be presented?

Taking all above into consideration how will the pilots be designed?

What resources do we need from NRCCTE?

It was a good session with a lot of good discussion. Our next session will be in state with out national facilitator and we hope to have a good deal of progress on our plan, maybe we will even share some of it here! (You know we will.)