Support for Career and Technical Education
Janice Henderson and Rhonda Trueman
Northwest Florida State College, Niceville Campus
In The Role of Libraries in Career and Technical Education Danna McCartney concluded, “Librarians have an opportunity to contribute to a positive, enriching learning environment in career and technical education” (Texas Library Journal, Summer 2012 p. 80-82).
Early in 2019, Janice Henderson and Rhonda Trueman, both librarians at Northwest Florida State College, began discussing ways to strengthen engagement between librarians, career and technical faculty, and students. The goal was to grow the use of library resources and services in programs that traditionally did not use library services very often. The two immediate objectives were to 1) support student success by greater use of library resources in Career and Technical Education (CTE) fields and 2) support faculty in an emphasis of “soft skills” and workforce skills that are applicable across the curriculum.
The librarians began attending CTE meetings and identified two critical findings that proved to be a catalyst for piloting a more streamlined library support system for Career and Technical Education programs. In 2019, the NWFSC Welding Program (NWFSC was designated Top Educational Institution by the American Welding Society (AWS), November 2018) along with the Professor of Welding, Scottie Smith (named 2018 Teacher of the Year by The Welder magazine), was seeking the designation of an Accredited Test Facility (ATF) by the AWS (Supporting Documents 1, 2 and 3). The Welding Department was specifically looking for a way to pay for and make accessible the AWS Codes and Standards Library. The same exemplary welding program at NWFSC was also developing new areas of instruction based on soft skills; specifically a job research project. (Supporting Document 4) The library was able to fund the AWS database and additionally provide access and instruction on necessary library resources. Further, the library staff partnered with welding to provide information and support for their capstone project focused on career analysis in their field.
The Supporting Career and Technical Education project pilot began with an informational session for welding instructors and staff on how to access and use the AWS Code and Standards Library and how to use Films on Demand and basic library resources. Discussion began on the Welding InfoGuide, (NWFSC name for LibGuides) (Supporting Document 5) and on bringing the students into the library instruction lab to do hands on work with the AWS database and using the library resources via the website. The library instruction session went very well, students were focused on learning what they had to know to accomplish the assignment (Supporting Document 6). When the welding students saw the videos available in Films on Demand, they became engaged in the process and wanted to learn how to find more. The first session was successful, judged by both the instructors’ assessment of completed assignments and student enthusiasm for new resources. This led to a second session. The second session was to work with the students on the Job Research Project (Supporting Document 7) and relevant soft skills related to job seeking, resume writing, travel for interviews, and presenting the information gathered in a formal class setting. (Supporting Documents 8 & 9)
After the first library instruction session, the welding professor sent pictures to the NWFSC Strategic Communications department (Supporting Document 10) for use in marketing the program. After the second session, he reported at a CTE committee meeting the success of the trip to the library. Currently two new CTE areas are now working with the librarians this term to develop library instruction specific to specialized subject and curricular needs (Dental Assisting and Graphic Design). The NWFSC librarians working with the program to Support Career and Technical Education have learned to truly appreciate and enjoy contributing “to a positive, enriching learning environment in career and technical education.”