Ute Maschke: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for a third day of Zoom sessions. Another long Zoomy day. So we appreciate you here this early in the morning. We want to share with you some work we have done across a region of five consortia and together with West Ed designing a tool that we think will indeed reinvent adult education and our offerings for the region.

Let me introduce ourselves first. And then we dive right in my name is Ute Maschke. I'm the CAEP manager for East Region adult education. That's a consortium in the eastern regions of San Diego County. And with me Blaire and Greg. Blaire, could you introduce yourself please?

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Yes, many of you probably already know me from the CAEP Adult Education Pipeline Work and Career Pathways CAEP fact-sheets work, and I work with West Ed. I'm a senior program manager and have worked in adult education for most of my career. So I'm excited to be here and working on this great project to help align adult education and some of the pathways up into post-secondary opportunities and employment. I'll turn it over to my colleague, Greg.

Greg Hill Jr: Hi, all. My name is Greg Hill Jr. I am a research associate also with West Ed. Most of my work is also in the post-secondary space, either adult ed or community college. Long timers will also know me from back in the day or even now. So [laughs] anyway, I'm really pleased to be here Ute and Blaire, and I'm really excited to share with you the work that we've done.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Next slide, Greg. So today we're going to talk just a tiny bit about career pathways to level set. Then we're really going to dig into the work that's going on in what we call the San Diego super region. And then we're hoping to engage you in discussion because we're always curious about how this work filters into your work as it exists now, and then the possibilities of it for growing your work, as well, just to sort of begin to think about the ecosystem of adult education and how it fits in with other educational institutions. Next slide.

So sort of as a level setting and to set the context, I wanted to introduce or remind everyone of the class career pathways model that they developed. And it presents a pathway that meets learners where they're at any level. As you can see, those multiple entry points, and then there is the understanding that people also have to exit.

And then what there should be are areas that allow them to re-enter that pathway. And it also-- we like this also, though, because it really identifies entry and exit points and highlights the relevance of credentials and skills that are aligned to employers and in-demand occupations, things that we know are all signals of strong career pathway systems.

So these are the key issues that frame the analysis and then the work that we're doing with his team. And then we would also like to pose that this idea that as we've continued to move through this work, seeing it less as this arrow that goes uni-direction-- a one direction arrow, and thinking and begin to think more about the career subway system as a better reflection of the work that we're doing and the way learners actually move through the educational systems, particularly through the adult education, and in and out of employment and in and out of post-secondary options.

So we'll circle back to this idea at the end and would love your feedback on it. So stay tuned. I'm going to hand it back to Ute.

Ute Maschke: So in our super region, and I explain in a moment what that is. We came across a challenge that I am sure is familiar to all of you. We were familiar with this pathway system model, a very linear model in a way. And we were somewhat unsatisfied and even a bit frustrated because that model seemed to not acknowledge adult education. We were still in the spot where we were the best kept secret, and some of us might still feel like we are the best kept secret similar to what the our guest speaker, Dr. Goode, said yesterday.

In our super region we wanted to tackle that. Our San Diego supervision consists of five consortia who come together once a month to share best practices, to share problems sets and challenges. And one of those challenges that we wanted to tackle together was to elevate the role of adult education across the region. We wanted to be known. We wanted not only a seat at the table, but also a voice at the table where larger discussions happened about career training throughout the region, including community colleges and including other training partners.

Many of us still thought about career pathways in very traditional ways, a very linear model that leads from high school to college. And we wanted to challenge that assumption and promote a shared understanding of who our adult learners are, especially at K-12 adult schools.

So in our discussions, we came up with some questions, some ideas, and the shared need that we needed to create a map that defines where and how we offer adult education training throughout the region and where do we see ourselves fit into a complex educational system that consists of many post-secondary training providers.

So we identified the need to create a career pathway map that addressed and met our adult learners' needs directly. And through various discussions we define some next steps that we could take together and for which we needed help. We needed facilitation with a few questions that we felt we couldn't tackle alone. Next slide.

And those questions we identified were those three. How could we find a way to recognize the magnitude of adult education offerings within a bigger picture of career training in mind? How could we complicate that very linear model, and Blaire already hinted at something we'll come back later, our subway idea.

And we want to be part of a bigger picture. If we truly want to be a voice and part of this bigger picture, how do we identify as adult education providers, especially at the K-12 Adult Schools, how do we identify common data points and create a map that reflects our offerings and still aligns with the Guided Pathways projects that direct a lot of the work at the community colleges. If we had those data points, then would how could we work with those data points, how could we create a common language beyond what already existed in a high school coding system or in the community college aspiring system and make that language align with the larger project.

So we reached out towards West Ed, and started to think about a project that is still funded with the help of the strong workforce consortium in our region. So West agreed to work with us, and we created a phase one for our-- we created the plan how we could tackle this issue in our region. And with that, I hand it over to the Blaire.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Thanks. Yes are-- we really-- to tie-in with what I Uta was saying earlier, is that we were really looking at in order to set a baseline and to begin these conversations and understand the space in which adult education lives in that very complex educational system writ large.

We thought we needed to establish some common definitions. We decided that also in order to really understand what was going on that, we would need to organize, forces, programs, and then code those courses and programs to establish that common language. And then as part of that, we had to establish the processes by which people would want to participate in this and then also make it replicable and sustainable.

And the ultimate goal for this particular phase, which continues is-- straddling two phases, is implementing an adult learner career exploration portal that learners-- this would not just be a process for the practitioners and administrators, it would also be something that would be of use to adult learners, so that they might be able to better inform themselves. And then pathways would be navigable for them as well with some kind of autonomous engagement, but it could also be used in tandem with a career navigator or a counselor. Next please. Yep.

So what we were informed by was originally from an educational workforce data project that had gone on and had done a scan of the CTE and career courses, both the non-credit and the adult K-12 programs. So and then that project mapped the relationship between those offerings and the labor markets.

And this was originally done for-- it was done it's a statewide project. It was originally done to support consortia planning on pathway development, allowing for conversations to be able to see what was being offered, how that might align to high priority occupations, as well as identify gaps, stimulate conversations about partnerships and relationships, with other people in the system. Next slide please.

So we first started doing this ourselves looking at what was originally available, and this was to help the practitioners organize programs. And then we move to thinking about SOC codes and that was to be used to outline the regional system. And so we started doing this, saw that there was a lot of overlap, and decided that, and also then had practitioners and administrators stakeholders in the adult education system in the region say, hey, we're missing some of these pieces right? This is not a full documentation of what we're offering. So to make a system that engaged practitioners and adult, I'll say, adult education professionals in this process we move to a different strategy. Next slide.

So we went to phase one, and that was where we looked at the target region. And then we were looking and we thought who do we need to include in this? And so we wanted to bring together all of the participants, we thought it was important to bring together any of the adult schools that were willing to put to participate, the non-credit programs. We had leaders in the consortium participate, as well.

We settled on an approach. We wanted to do train the trainer model where we would work with the identified contacts. Each of The schools and institutions selected representatives and so who were the contacts and so each of them would lead the coding work with the institutions in their region. And we held sessions. And at first we were introducing the coding categorization process.

And then we went through for a refinement of that. Because this was a brand new process. And it seems we're talking about it as though it was streamlined. There was a lot of iteration. We did one train the trainer, and then we went back and we would meet with consortia leader, and say, what's the feedback from the region. And so we would reiterate even this first coding process. And you'll see how it really evolved over the process when we get into phase two.

Ute Maschke: Yeah and this iterative process really came about because we kept asking, wait a minute. Where's our student in this picture? Where do we see our adult learners in this mapping process? We couldn't find them really. We couldn't see them in the linear model. We couldn't see them really because for us it mattered where our students would transition into, the living wage job, the meaningful employment, the meaningful college career. We couldn't find it in this model. So we went back in those iterations and tried to figure out what is it that we try to advocate for? What is it that we do on behalf of our students. So yes, Blairs said what looks so smooth here was not a smooth process.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: And to Ute's point about centering the learner, if you remember in that previous slide where our ultimate goal was the learner centered piece. And so that was used-- they were always continuing in the conversation. And you'll see when we get into coding, it feels like it's the nitty gritty, but it's really-- what drove those conversations was the ultimate student facing product. Like what do they need to know, what we need to know in order to present that information to them in an accessible process-- Sorry, in an accessible product that they can use to inform their own pathway.

All right, let's go. So speaking of the nitty gritty, we're going to get into it. So if we can go-- yeah, thank you. So our first priority was to code the courses right, and this involved identifying the type of course, assigning a SOC code and then adding relevant information into the coding sheet. And we're going to walk through this process a little bit.

And again, we can't reiterate more strongly is like when you're working across, we were working across a region with more than one consortium. And so think even with one consortium, it has several institutions involved and several stakeholders. And so even just sort of level setting within a consortium can be difficult. But then level setting across a series of consortium became one of our big priorities. So we were really thinking about that we needed establish a establish a unified understanding of the mapping goal, and then a common vocabulary when we were talking among different institutions.

So one of the first things we did was talk about how are we going to talk about the courses because that was the goal. And we came up with the three categories that are usually associated with career pathways, and this was workforce preparation, occupational skills builders courses, and occupational training programs, or as we call them, credential programs. And we'll talk about credentials, why we name it that in a moment.

And we began to hone in on the focus of not having to code every single course, right? If you think about the number of courses one institution offers, it's a broad array of courses. And so when we began thinking about this coding work, we focused in on what was the purpose of the work that we were doing. And it was really to think about what were the end results for learners? What did we want?

And we settled on the idea that we really wanted courses that bridge directly into a concrete employment opportunity, or that it could be that concrete Employment Opportunity and then they could bridge into they would have all the skills and the requirements to bridge into another course-- a secondary course so that they could continue on that pathway should they so choose. But our goal was to have a concrete tangible outcome from a course that served the adult learners. Again, there was that direct focus on what was the meaning for adult learners?

Ute Maschke: So this one slide, I think, summarizes about six months of conversation also, right?

Blaire Wilson Tosa: [laughs]

Ute Maschke: We discuss K-12 adult schools we were starting to understand what we're talking about across the adult schools and starting to develop the shared language? What are you talking about when you say workforce prep? What am I talking about when I say workforce prep? So this common language that we built was I think a first powerful step toward that seat at the table, that voice at the table later.

Because we realized if we cannot really present as one to our students or to our colleagues at other institutions, we will never to a powerful position in which we want to be is adult education providers. So this was also a sort of a sorting out and understanding better what my partners at other adult schools are doing.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: And the coding process really helped to drive those conversations because it wasn't simply that we said, here, this is the process, what we did, here, this is the process. And what we learn through that is that there were really robust conversations among the people who were coding. And it wasn't simply a person from an institution who did the coding.

People that were doing the coding, they learned about it, then they went back to their institution, and did a full review of their courses coded them, and then they would take them to other people, they would ask and some of the instructors that worked on that course. They would ask their administrators, they would ask counselors and gather their input to better understand well to figure out exactly what was going on with their institution.

And the feedback we received was that, yeah, it was a process, but they felt that these conversations simply around trying to square the coding process within their own programs really elevated the conversation in many of these institutions and established stronger communication within an institution, as well. We were looking for that outside among institutions, but what people were saying was that it was coming back and helping them within their institutions to establish a common language, to learn about each other's courses, and in some cases even to better align the curriculum within their institutions.

So it was a really interesting, nuanced process that occurred that we didn't even anticipate taking place. It was exciting and a learning experience for all of us. So it was much more-- it was deeper than we thought it would be and really aligned within institution, and then propelled us to have better conversations amongst institutions.

But one of the things that we sorted through-- we were talking about that finding out where we wanted to focus our efforts on the coding-- was by identifying, again that key component of what's in it for the learner? What do they attain upon completion? And because we were looking for that concrete outcome, we ended up beginning to code occupational skills builders, but then really settled on that third category of occupational credential programs.

And just the workforce preparation is more of a generalized class where you're doing those preparation skills. I'm sure everyone's really familiar with them right? They're what you need to better understand the workforce. But they aren't necessarily refined skills nor are they necessarily the content isn't that you have everything needed to complete a protect a particular job or to gain a particular job. They help you advance skills and get on a pathway and explore, but doesn't necessarily lead directly to a job, so like your OSHA10 certificate.

Occupational skill builders, they are often standalone courses, and they provide a particular skill. Again, they are ones that might help you advance in your work or they might fill a niche of what you are doing something like particular-- so for ESL, it might be particular vocabulary, a course that might be focused on vocabulary, or maybe a professional certificate like Adobe, or CNA certification. But it doesn't fully qualify you for a job. That course alone won't do that.

And then when we look at these occupational training courses, these were courses or programs-- and we allowed people to bundle courses together, right? They could say this three series course will lead you to that occupational credential program. And so its features-- the features of these courses are substantive training on a full set of skills that will help you enter a target occupation. Oftentimes it includes the training for and preparation for a certificate. Once you complete this course, then you can go and take a certificate and be prepared to enter an occupation. Or sometimes of course, is actually embed that certificate in part of their learnings.

So Greg of Ute did you want to add anything to that?

Ute Maschke: I just wanted to add that this, again, was a very intensive and intense conversation because we also we were striving for transparency and honesty. So for the third occupational credential programs, we actually looked at real placement, real students who went into real positions. So this was not just a theoretical abstract conversation. If you take this course, you may get a job in xy.

We did it backwards. We looked at where are we placing our students, which jobs are our students actually getting, and then mapped it backwards. To be really clear, if I show this to a co-worker or student, this is what you can actually achieve if you follow this path. So again this mapping and coding project became a catalyst for a much larger conversation. What is it that we are doing in adult education that supports real people with real needs with real goals.

Greg Hill Jr: The only thing I would add there too is oftentimes these are as you can see are at different levels, and not everybody is able to see the full path. And so it was really helpful for a kind of gesturing toward comparability. Because often schools just have a different sense. We do it this way, and you do it this way. And it looks like you're doing the same thing, but maybe you're not.

And also to reiterate what Blaire and Ute have been saying, this looks really clean in this little graphic. It was not that clean. I mean, in the end it was really nice, but I was just joking with Blaire a little bit in the text that the even just basic nomenclature like course was something very difficult to navigate. But anyway that's my two cents right there

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Thanks. Yep. And again it was that focus on the concrete outcomes for adult learners that drove this process. Whenever there was confusion, we would always come back to that point. And we did provide decision making tools and guides that also became refined as we supported people and met again and tried to refine information that they needed so that it would be both more streamlined, but also sustainable.

We all know that courses and program offerings change from semester to semester, year to year, and we really think that this is important. If we're going to this work, that it should be a process that sustains. And Greg will talk a little bit about where we've landed on that because it certainly moved from this.

And before we go to the-- we're going to go to a quick activity, but before we do that, I want to definitely point out that just because we weren't coding workforce preparation courses, does not mean that they do not hold importance or relevance. We had that discussion about those are key classes, program, courses, whatever word you want to use.

Greg, we still are we're still sort of glossing over that as far as we're about the actual naming of that-- the unit of education . But workforce preparation are incredibly important for adult learners, that it was not an exclusion of them or that they're not relevant. Just that they don't have that concrete outcome and we know that adult education schools and non-credit programs are really focused on including workforce preparation or offering standalone courses that support learners in developing those skills.

Are there any questions? At this point I know we've been talking a lot. And I posted the text. Please feel free to unmute and ask your questions. We the three of us are really informal, and this is as much a discussion as it is a presentation. So please feel free to participate. All right, then we're going to give you a . task. You can go to the next slide.

We're going to add we're going to have you all go to the Jamboard, and then what we'd like you to do is think about your programming that's wherever you sit, and go ahead here. Are you going to share, Greg, or should I share? And this is what you should see once you access that link.

What we'd really like you to do is identify, think about your program offerings, and then begin to practice that coding process, and identify a class or a program that would fit into each of these categories. And you'll put them on a sticky and place them in the tier.

And just a quick overview, if you click on this sticky note here, if you click on that and then you can type, advanced, manufacturing. And then you click Save. It will post it, and if you want to exit out of it, you can cancel it. And so I'd say. Yep. My students get a certificate, and I work with an employer and I know they're going into a job, and that they are prepared for that job. And I would move it over there.

All right so go ahead. Yes, thank you. Yay, we have a participant. Thank you. Got food handling. Medical assistant. Got keyboarding, medical assistance. Nice . Soft skills training. So important, right, to my point about workforce preparation so important for our adult learners.

Interesting. I'm curious for the person who posted-- sorry to put you on the spot. You can send me a message if you don't want to say, but I'm curious why did you classify a health care interpreter in occupational skills builder?

Audience: I think that I would put that as an occupational skills builder because often our health certificate candidates will take health care interpreter, and it's really something that can enhance their ability when their medical assistant or enhance their ability in the medical office versus via a stand alone position for full time hours.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, totally makes sense. Thanks, Nikki. Let me put it on the spot. Yes.

Ute Maschke: I like that ESL for child care is showing up. So I think it's crucial for us to think about language support programs as far as workforce prep, be that an IET model or not or vessel I think it's crucial for us to consider that.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: In but in thinking about this. Were there any of you who are posting, or even if you're not posting to the jam board and you're just thinking about this, thoughts on categorizing this way? Does it make sense or are there things that you think you would change about this process? We're looking for feedback on how this might resonate with other institutions or consortia.

Ute Maschke: Maybe we need to share a little bit more about the process before this all makes sense.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: OK. I am going to stop sharing. And as you think about it, please feel free to share. We really think it's-- for us, it's an interesting concept. And because we've only done it in one region and we'd really like-- we're completely trying to influence everybody to think about subway mapping and outcomes for learners, as well as the alignment and pathway mapping.

Greg Hill Jr: Blaire, Ute, can I add one, quick thought please. So I'm still looking at the Jamboard and first, thank you for all of you who are engaging in this little activity, but-- yeah, so two things. One, I'm frankly impressed with the facility that many of you have popped in, and said, oh, yeah. This is what this. This is what this is. And I would venture to say that in most cases, yeah, this is some of the trends that we saw.

The second thing I would say is those little aquamarine or teal bars there separating the tiers are-- just remember, it's really kind of a staging process. And one could easily for example say pull up health care interpreter, medical terminology, and then draw a line right across there to medical assistance. Because within your program that could be the path toward that position.

Yeah, I mean, actually in that case, too, there are some things that we found are like-- they kind of straddle. And it's entirely possible that within an individual program the robustness or sort of skills that are developed are really more essential-- or not more essential, but absolutely essential in a way that really mitigates them from being an occupational skills builder, which would be a way to advance or whatnot. And so the configurations might vary and that is actually one of the things we discovered. But anyway, yeah. This is really great. Thank you.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Yeah, and to your point Greg is for example, one of the things we talked about is the bundling of courses to really make a complete-- to really complete the learner experience. So, for example, to be a medical assistant, you may need to have that medical terminology or a school may wrap those together so that they are taking them either as co-enrolled class or in tandem as a requirement of.

So as Greg said, yes the teal bars are lovely in this Jamboard, but they're fuzzier and you can see how they work through. Yes. Thanks for the community health worker. That's great. Any other thoughts? Any questions? Listening to what Greg was saying about in tandem, the overlay, any other thoughts about this process?

All right, I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing. Greg if you can bring up the PowerPoint.

Greg Hill Jr: Can you see it?

Blaire Wilson Tosa: No.

Greg Hill Jr: OK, let me try that again.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: I'll go ahead and start talking about our next step was-- we went ahead and then once they were coded as to what kind or what the classification of course was, we wanted to-- we decided again to add something tangible to think about pathways and occupations. We wanted to code them and we chose to do SOC codes because there was a clear sector and occupation associated with the courses. And we went with occupation because it could cross multiple sectors as well.

So once the courses were identified, we asked everyone to assign that course. And it would facilitate and also it would facilitate those conversations across institutions, when discussing pathways, local offerings, or transfer opportunities. So it was, again, the purpose was to make the system more navigable.

Ute Maschke: So and while we're waiting for the presentation, let me chime in with the SOC codes. What do they stand for Blaire? Blaire, what does SOC stand for?

Blaire Wilson Tosa: They stand for the Standard Occupational Classification, which was developed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it's really it's a system-- it's actually a really navigable system. And I think on the slide, there's a link to it. But it's a system and it identifies and classifies occupations by an assigned definition, which also includes things such as the job duties, stop skills, education, and the training required by the jobs. So we found that--

Ute Maschke: So I'm-- Yeah, I'm sorry. And I wanted to bring this up-- I wanted to ask to bring this up because that's a crucial part of our conversation. What's the real outcome, the real life outcome for our students, and how does it connect to the real life of our students, which is finding employment, a career. Even when they go to non-credit and credit courses at the colleges, one of the biggest goals is a worthwhile career.

So aligning it with SOC was also our connection to business partners because now we could also develop a shared language that finally our business partners could make sense of. We weren't always that good communicating with our business partners what we had to offer. Aligning with the SOC helped us finding the common language, not just internally across with our school partners and non-credit programs, but also with our business partners. And it had the strong focus on student centered outcomes already built into the system.

So SOC was our way of differentiating ourselves from the high school coding, from the colleges' cooling systems but also aligning with both and not going completely off into a different direction. So for us there was a really crucial moment in the conversation where we all agree, yes, there are other cooling systems. It might be A22 at adult schools. It might be the TOPS codes at the colleges. But here's our niche. Here's what we want to add to the picture. And there you see it on the screen.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Sorry, I think that I was sharing screen and you all got to see me fly through those slides. Can you see the screen.

Ute Maschke: Yep.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: OK. Perfect. So then we walked through these on the-- I'm going to have to stop. Let me just stop share one quick moment. Sorry. Apologies for this everyone.

Ute Maschke: So for me, this was really one of the aha moments, when we sort of through conversations, through shared discovery also realized, wait a minute, we finally have the system where we can talk to both, right, to the business partners to our college partners. So for me, that was a very crucial moment for us to discover across the super region.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Yeah. Thanks. That was the other reason we did SOC codes was because we wanted to have conversations about this, or we wanted the regions to have conversations with their business partners, with their VOA partners, so that they could have stronger conversations that were aligned in the language that they were accustomed to using.

So again, it ended up being all this multi purposing of this activity so that it would both position adult education services for learners as navigable and accessible, but also position adult learning within that system, within the broader system of both VOA as well as the educational system.

So I think we just had up front having a seat at the table. We all know that sometimes it's a little difficult to be in there, whether legislation requires it or not, getting in there and being able to be relevant sometimes requires you to speak the language of the other people on the table.

I did want to mention that you can see where there's the major group and the minor groove the types of classifications. Some programs already had their courses coded to SOC , and they had them on the lowest level on the smallest level, but we suggested again that ' code up at that higher level as well into the major group because we wanted to support the idea that a pathway can branch and learners can explore multiple occupations or possibilities within that pathway.

And we outlined a process for this, which, again, gave as guidance, but I'm going to go ahead and see if we will probably move forward. I did want to note that within this coding process that programs also, even though, it wasn't on our coding sheet, if you could move to the next slide, Greg. Oh no, sorry. I'm so busy. I forgot that it's me doing the slides. I need more coffee people. [laughs] Sorry. Ute, were you going to say something.

Ute Maschke: Yeah, so the SOC codes and speaking the same language. Side benefit of this is, if you share SOC codes with your Center of Excellence for Labor Market Research, they can produce data for you. The Centers of Excellence cannot really produce data for us if we share with them A22 codes. SOC codes do the trick. So for the strategic planning. If you want labor market research data and present those codes to your local agency, they should be able to produce a regionalized or localized report for you.

Blaire Wilson Tosa: Thank you. And led me led me straight into what I was going to say. On here, this is the coding sheet we used. You can see how we had them put the course title the unique ID. And then the tier level was associated with what kind, what classification it was.

And then this was to indicate-- remember we talked a little bit about people came back to us and said, well, this isn't standalone as a single class, but if we bundle them together this would meet that occupational training force definition. And so that was important for us to be able to bundle. And part of it was in these discussions we found that some people did one course, and it was everything that one needed. Whereas other people had the equivalent of that, they had just broken it up into different courses.

So it was a point of where we wanted again that discussion of what are people offering, how does it align, and how do we talk about this with students. And it was really about clarity and transparency and definition of what are the services we offer and where does it lead the learner. So we allow for them to do the bundling of courses. And then there was the we put the SOC occupation code for common conversations within programs, within and across programs, and across consortia, and there you can see the primary SOC code.

One of the interesting things was when people took this back, almost everyone went to what Ute was talking about. They added a column, and put in that A22 code because that was another language that people speak, and it informed the way they talked amongst themselves. So that you have a layer of communication, then you have the SOC code that offers another way of talking about your courses and yet you're still talking about the same thing.

So it provided when we were talking about that uniform definition, level setting of language. These were all really important concepts. We knew they were important. But as we went through the process, we understood more and more how important they were to have fruitful conversations. Any other thoughts before I hand it over to Ute? And my foreshadowing of this is not where we ended up.

Ute Maschke: So we had a bunch of spreadsheets, many of them each K-12 adult school had a spreadsheet with listed all their CTE programs, which was an awesome first step, but we ended up with so many questions. So wait a minute. I'm offering welding. You offer welding. How come my program is a certain set of hours and costs a certain fee, and your program has a different set of hours and a different fee? What's going on here? How does that help the student?

Can we find a way, can we envision a system, where a student who might have to move for whatever reasons finds herself at a new adult school, and the course is named exactly the same way, but comes across as completely different. What can we do across the whole region to systematize that.

Adult Ed is only as strong as we are individually and as a system together. So we came up with these questions that you see in the left column there right? Can we align these classes, not just internally, but also across our super region, across five consortia. If we can, if want to do this, how do we go about it? How can we leverage the opportunities we offer it at our adult schools and at non-credit departments? How do we need to leverage those resources that we might not end up offering this very same CTE program everywhere, but rather stack it?

And how do we measure the value and quality of our courses across the region. How can we actually compare welding at say East Region Adult Education, our consortium with Education Degree Network in the North. And finally, how do we measure the value of the skills versus occupational training courses?

So questions led to first desire, let's continue this project, ask West Ed once again where you continue working with us, and then opportunities to refine our shared understanding and to start designing a true system that serves our adult learners, and discuss how can we now speak with one voice at those other tables we already alluded to. So these opportunities bundle with those questions led to the next phase,. That's where Greg comes in.

Greg Hill Jr: Thanks, Ute. Yeah, to recap and follow up, so yeah. We went through this big process, really honing in on that end goal. And it was a really engaging and very productive process, yielded some really important findings as Ute just said, raised some even more important questions.

Having said that, right, there were two considerations that sort of popped up as part of that. One, the idea of aligning is not new. Anybody who's worked in higher ed or even just any of the CTE initiatives over the past 10 years would understand, would remember all of the efforts that started are continuing around aligning. And one of the things that I've seen and I'm sure that you've seen is a big push to do some alignment say, even establish a number of articulation agreements, but then nothing happens.

And so this graphic here is sort of a bit of a metaphor for that. And this is actually just really a bobsled track. It cost I think it was around $20 million to build in US current money in Sarajevo. It was for the 1984 Olympics, and don't get me wrong there are lots of political context around why it is the bobsled track looks the way it does now. But as I said, it's sort of an interesting metaphor for if you build it, you want to make sure there's a plan to continue using it. And for the record it is actually being renovated.

So at any rate, so it says here right it provided a method for differentiating between types of courses. We wanted to get to the end, wanted to be able to say, OK, which is the real sort of leaping off point without judgment, but which of these when your students leave will actually allow them to get a job. It also highlighted the opportunities for bundling and resequencing because, again, like Ute mentioned, there are these courses that may have the exact same name or subtly different names, but in fact, when you sort of unpack them they're not the same at all or not enough the same to be able to say they are equivalent necessarily.

It also laid the groundwork for a subsequent help mapping, and like I said yielded data that might be important for design and improvement, which is the ultimate goal. If we're aligning these programs, if we're not going to dig into the content collectively, then it's a map that doesn't correspond to the territory. And so could you go to the next slide. Thank you, Blaire.

OK, a few findings. So yeah, course coding was essential, but it was that first step. There's still horizontal work to be done and vertical into community college and particularly credit right? Much of this effort focused on adult schools almost exclusively, though some community colleges did participate, and they were of course invited. There was also an understanding that there is a common nomenclature in community college that doesn't exist for adult schools.

The idea of mapping to SOC was particularly valuable because it did place the student's end goal right at the center. It also allowed some extracting of-- it's not about courses. It's about where students end up. Can we get them there? However, it can only really partially account for how students actually move through those pathways, because the configurations like we saw earlier in the class model, there are lots of different ways to get to that end.

And so this takes us back to the exercise we did as well as just meeting on Jamboard as well as this sort of coding process. So whereas we really focused on bundling and those occupational training programs, there are these other modules, courses, elements that are absolutely essential and may in fact be essential for bridging in different directions.

And, I would say, particularly those skills builders courses, where if you're thinking again about the long term you know navigability, I guess, of the system right for students, you could end your work, you could end your education in one place, get some certification, but then need to continue upskilling. And maybe the opportunities for that exist at a different agency nearby, and that becomes the bridge.

Or alternatively, there is an element of an existing occupational training program that articulates already to another agency or the community college. And so these are an important sort of path, I guess, into that sort of longer term pathway, for lack of a better term, into long term meaningful employment.

OK, and so the other thing we found though is lack of shared nomenclature duh,duh duh, duh remains a bit of a challenge. So we identified SOC which is great, but SOC even isn't industry and much of the language within a higher ed is industry. And part of the conversation is also with other educational organizations. If that were not the case, then we wouldn't have this problem. Likewise as you all know, adult ed doesn't have, with the exception of A22, a particularly robust classification system. It's pretty high level, and not everyone actually uses A22.

But anyway, and I think I mentioned this already. The last little finding was around sort of digging deeper standardizing, integrating into a coherent, region wide, pathways was even more difficult in the absence of common source for programmatic information. So I know I speak pretty fast, and so if there are questions, please do put those in the chat. This will probably become more concrete in just a moment. Ute, Blaire, did you want to add anything to those? Yeah. OK.

All right, so toward a common classification system. So as Blaire and Ute shared, we went through this process aligned to SOC. This naturally began to lead to raise sort of highlight sort of gaps in and not in the process at all, but in how-- not gaps so much, but it highlighted the complexity around trying to classify programs and begin to talk about comparability and true alignment of content.

And so really-- yeah, and so it naturally led to thinking about, well, OK, how does this correspond with how we're already classifying courses? And furthermore, how do both of those correspond to how different segments classify their courses because the experience of the student needs to be cohesive right? The goal, one of the primary objectives for AB104 is seamless integration right, and so that sort of one of the underpinnings of the adult ed initiative.

And so what we started to do is we took those initial codes and started coding in both directions. So asked folks to provide their A22 codes, which again, if you're not familiar these are the adult ed codes, and these codes and I'm not sure everybody fully knows this, but these codes also correspond with CTE sector and pathway codes, which was really valuable because that enabled us to start thinking about industry as well, because occupations are jobs and they may cut across industries. Industries are industries.