Growing numbers of employers are voicing concern that they cannot find enough talent with strong employability skills – dependability, integrity, and work ethic, along with skills such as problem-solving and organization, adaptability, and entrepreneurship. To see what we’re doing to help address this issue, visit our Necessary Skills Now project.

Learn more through our National Career Pathways Network.

In recent years more and more community and technical colleges have been embedding “stackable” credentials into their associate degree programs. Because they are aligned with industry need, these incremental milestones on the path to associate degree completion help students acquire marketable skills at multiple points along the education continuum. For more on this approach to program organization, see our recent publication titled Introduction to Stackable Credentials.

To ensure that educational programs prepare students for the real challenges of the workplace, employers should be involved in shaping those programs. However, conventional program advisory committees often fall short of strategic engagement. Through its BILT Academy, CORD challenges educators to be proactive in forming Business and Industry Leadership Teams (BILT), in which participating employers take a co-leadership role in technical education programs. See more here.

Most students’ interest and achievement in school improve dramatically when new information is presented “in context,” i.e., in ways that show connections between what the students are being taught and how that knowledge is used outside the classroom. CORD’s approach to contextual teaching and learning takes the form of five essential learner engagement processes we refer to collectively as REACT: Relating, Experiencing, Applying, Cooperating, and Transferring. See this document for more.