Jennifer Bento: [00:00:00] Right. Welcome everyone, and good morning. You see we have a poll up here, so as you’re logging in, if you could just answer our one question poll, that would be greatly appreciated. Okay. Um, this is a MEFA Institute webinar. Learn about. Pathways work-based learning tool and we are so thrilled to have you here this morning with us.

Uh, today we have, uh, MI a’s K 12 services team, a, Andrea, and myself, Jennifer, along with Joe Wyman, CCTE, liaison for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. A few logistics before we get started. If you have any questions, please pop those into the qa. [00:01:00] The chat is disabled today. Uh, we’ll address those as we go along and then take some time at the end for anything outstanding.

Um, if you wanna enable the closed captions. Please do so. And if you need to leave the webinar before we conclude, no worries. Uh, we are recording this webinar, uh, and we’ll be sending along a follow-up, uh, either today or tomorrow with the slides that we’re, we’ll be going through, uh, in this presentation along with the recording.

Uh, and also this webinar as part of the Mefa Institute is eligible for one PDP. So that will all be included in our follow up email. All right. A little bit about MEFA. Uh, MEFA has been around for over 40 years, uh, with the continued mission of helping students plan, save, and pay for college. Um, in addition to offering, uh, loan our lo our low cost loan programs, we manage the Massachusetts College Savings plans, uh, the U Plan and the U Fund.

Uh, and we work closely with schools across the state, uh, [00:02:00] in support to support college and career readiness. So our agenda today, we have a nice full agenda for you today. Uh, first we’ll hear from Joe Wyman from Desi who will share the state’s approach to work-based learning and my cap. Uh, then we’ll speak to Amfa Pathways platform features, uh, getting started, and then we’ll move on to our live demo, uh, where we’ll look at the counselor, student and employer experiences.

And then we’ll wrap up and we’ll address any, um, questions that may be lingering at that time. Okay, so now I’m going to hand it over to Joe.

Joe Wyman: Good morning everybody. Um, thanks to MEFA for hosting this webinar. Um, I’m here today to talk about work-based learning from the DESI point of view and specifically how it can fit into, uh, your, my cap scope and sequence.

Go ahead, Jennifer, to next slide please. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about what is my cap. I suspect most, if not all of you know this, but, [00:03:00] uh, I’m gonna review it briefly just to make sure. I’m gonna talk about work-based learning as a culminating experience for my cap, so as the sort of, uh, final part of that, at least career at exploration, um, portion of my ccap.

And then, uh, also talk a little bit about, uh, the department’s expectations for the use of ne Neeva pathway. Alright, next slide. So what is my cap? Uh, if you don’t know, it’s a college career and civic readiness initiative. It’s a student-centered holistic planning process, uh, for, um, that starts with a backwards, backwards planning model.

So it starts with a, trying to answer the question of what does students wanna do with their post-secondary experience? Do they wanna go to college right into the workforce? What kind of college do they wanna go into? What kind of career do they wanna go in? And then help students make decisions and build skills, um, in middle and high school that will put them on a path to [00:04:00] achieving whatever goal they have for themselves.

Okay. Next slide.

So what it looks like in a more practical way, my cap is both a process and an instrument. So, um, the process is a set of students’ experiences, um. While they’re in school to help them, uh, build the skills and plan for life after high school. It’s student directed, but the whole school is involved. Uh, it can be implemented in a variety of settings, um, in school and virtually through classrooms, seminars, workshops, um, as well as independent work by the student.

Um, it would include a caring and encouraging mentor and adult that’s sort of leading the process. Uh, it could be multiple adults obviously doing that. Uh, and it connects the academic learning with future plans. Um, we as a department provide a series of grade level learning objectives and sequences, [00:05:00] uh, that schools and districts then use to create, uh, lessons that they implement at the local level.

It’s also the, an instrument, uh, MEFA pathway is an example of a ki of the kind of instrument you might use for this. Um. The My Cap Instrument is a place where, uh, the student can document their learning, their planning, their goals and objectives, uh, reflections and achievements. There can be lessons that you participate in through the instrument that’s part of the My Cap process.

Um, it can act as a sort of portfolio capturing, um, artifacts. Um, and MEFA Pathway is the, is a free, free resource, a free tool rec, uh, that’s recommended by the state. Uh, but there certainly are others as well. All right, next slide.

So what is my, why do we want you, or why do we encourage schools to implement my cap in work-based learning? What is the, what is, what is it doing for students? [00:06:00] Well, we believe that, um, we can improve student engagement by making education more relevant in real world. So when a student can see that the educational experiences they’re participating in are preparing them for the goals they have for themselves, we believe that students will be more engaged, uh, in their own education and therefore more successful.

So also opportunities to build the personal and social skills that students need to be successful while they’re in school, but also will be necessary in any career they may pursue after high school. And I actually think, um, there’s an opportunity for schools to sort of. Help students understand how the social emotional learning they may be going through doesn’t just, isn’t just useful while they’re in school, but those are actually lifelong skills that they’ll always need, always use in their personal life and in their professional life while they’re in school, in a career, whatever it might be.

Um, I know when I’ve had the opportunities to talk with industry partners, often what [00:07:00] they talk about in terms of what students. Are lacking or what new employees are lacking, young people are lacking. Uh, they talk more about the soft skills than they do about the technical skills. And usually what I hear, uh, from employers is we can teach them the technical pieces that they need to know, but are they, you know, can they manage relationships?

Can they, uh, do all the things that are required just to be a successful employee in any field? Um, it’s also the, my Cap is an opportunity to align for students their personal strengths or passions. The career, uh, development, the sort of what do I, what, what’s important to me? What do I like, what do I think I’m good at, and what kind of career makes sense for me based on that?

And then create authentic post-secondary plans for their specific circumstances. And then ultimately it helps to take, um, helps students connect their course taking while they’re in high school, in particular with career choices. So it’s about using their electives effectively. To help them pursue whatever goal it might be.

If [00:08:00] I’m interested in innovate information technology, maybe I go into a career technical education program, maybe I go into an innovation career pathway program. If I’m really interested in the arts or music, I really focus on, uh, those sorts of courses. Uh, but it starts with having some goals in mind for after high school and then choosing the courses, uh, that make sense based on that goal.

And then of course, ultimately it’s, it’s about high quality post-secondary planning. We really wanna support students as they’re transitioning from high school to whatever comes next so that they can be successful. You know, if that means for them enrolling in a two or four year college in the fall after graduation, that’s great.

So we wanna actually see them, you know, um, apply to, and then enroll in a college and then persist. Uh, if it’s about a career, uh, then we would like to see them transitioning from high school into a career that makes sense for them. That’s aligned with the, the experiences they had in, in high school. So if you wanna be an electrician, hopefully you’ve been in a program that would support you in [00:09:00] pursuing that goal.

Um, and then you would transition to be an electrician right after high school. Next slide.

So, you know, I’ve talked about my cap a lot and, and part of the reason I do that. The reason really I want to do that is I, I think it’s important for schools to see work-based learning, not as an isolated activity or a program that some students may take in, uh, participate in as a senior if they happen to have time, but instead as a part of a continuum of career development and post-secondary planning that will support student success after they leave high school.

And the way to do that is really, I think, to embed it in, uh, as a part of my cap. So, you know, if we think about it from the student perspective, you know, in middle school, uh, maybe I’m starting to explore careers and, and think about possible pathways I might wanna participate in, um, when I’m in high school.

So, you know, I’m in high, I’m in middle school. I start exploring careers. I’m interested in [00:10:00] engineering. And, uh, my high, the high school I’m going to attend has an advanced manufacturing innovation career pathway. So I apply to and, and enroll in that pathway. Which then determines the sequence of courses I’ll take that will help me develop skills that will allow me to be successful, uh, in pursuing that career.

Um, it’s an opportunity to develop students’ career readiness skills. So these are the sorts of skills that, um, are outside of our normal academic teaching, but that students will need to be successful, um, in, in a career. Um, and then work-based learning. The experience, uh, work-based learning experiences are, are also an opportunity for students to.

Take a lot of the learning they’ve had, certainly the learning that’s been a part of my cap, but also potentially learning from their pathway if they’re in one, and apply those skills in a sort of real world setting. So apply them in a, in a career kind of experience, uh, which I think would help them to, uh, deepen their skills, [00:11:00] have a really authentic experience, and help them sort of confirm or not, whether they’re.

Wanna continue on that same pathway. We know young people, many, some will, uh, change their minds. And part of being able to change your mind in a sort of informed way is to use these experiences to help understand what would it be like to work in this field. And, and maybe that, hopefully that sort of confirms that you’ve made a good choice.

Uh, but in some cases it will help you understand that maybe that wasn’t the best choice. And you need to go back and think more about what kinds of career you, kinds of career you wanna pursue. Um, and it’s also an opportunity to get feedback from somebody outside of school setting. And I think that can sort of land differently for students when they hear it from an adult in a workplace as opposed to the, the teachers and other adults that they work with every day.

Um, I mean, it’s great to get feedback from people in all kinds of different settings. So if you hear it from other adults, uh, other, in other situations, it might have an impact in a different kind of way. [00:12:00] Next slide. As you’re thinking about my cap, what we would encourage schools to do is develop learning objectives across grade spans, um, or review the learning objectives, I’m sorry, across grade spans and develop learning, target, learning targets, artifacts and lessons for each grade level.

For each learning objective, develop a My Cap plan. Who’s doing it? What are they doing? Where are they doing it, and when are they doing it? This could be during an advisory, it could be during specific courses. It could be as a part of um, uh, you know, sort of whole class or whole school experiences. It could be field trips, but figure thinking about what lessons are you gonna teach, who’s teaching it, in what setting are the teaching it?

And then also a my cap calendar, thinking about when are we doing each of these things. And that’s something that’s probably gonna have to be updated every year, uh, as your calendar changes a little bit. Um, you’ll wanna make [00:13:00] sure everyone is on the same page in terms of, you know, when, when those lessons are supposed to take place.

Okay, next slide.

So, the role of my cap in work-based learning, and I’ve already talked about this a little bit, but if you think about it from the, think about the experience of my cap students are. You know, sixth, seventh grade, ideally they’re starting to do these, um, self-discovery experiences, and maybe even in elementary school, but certainly by sixth or seventh grade.

Ideally, what are they interested in? What are they good at? Um, even still in middle school, seventh to eighth grade, exploring career fields that they might be interested, developing career skills and then identifying pathways that they, they wanna participate in. Those are all things that happen or can happen during, uh, my cap lessons or like my cap experiences that will be aligned to putting a students on a pathway for a specific career.

And then by the time they become a senior, they, uh, hopefully, [00:14:00] you know, if they’ve gone down this pathway or, or they have an interest in a specific field they get to their senior year, they can have an authentic work-based learning experience that sort of builds on or is the culminating experience. For all the other experiences they’ve had as a part of their My cap process.

Next slide.

So I do wanna talk a little bit about what we mean in Massachusetts by work-based learning. So here are some examples of work-based learning opportunities that students may participate in. A pre-apprenticeship program is a program that has a documented, documented partnership with at least one registered apprenticeship program.

Could be an internship or clinical. It could be paid or credit bearing, uh, and of a hundred hours or more could be a capstone, a work-based learning capstone. Um, that would be an industry engaged capstone. So what I mean by that is the students don’t necessarily leave the school building. It’s a class scheduled into their day [00:15:00] where they are participating in a work-based learning experience that is aligned to a specific industry partner.

They may get projects or tasks assigned to them by the industry partner that they complete during the class in the school building. Um, but it’s, but the important piece for, to um, sort of differentiate between some capstones and a work-based learning capstone is spec is that employer engagement, uh, could be a work based learning simulation.

Uh, that either includes employers or clients and customers that are external to the school or district. So. An example here would be, uh, for career technical education programs, particularly say in the culinary program, often they have, um, a restaurant that is a part of the school building where people from outside the school, local community members are able on specific days to come in and order lunch or breakfast, and the students in the culinary program cook the [00:16:00] meals, uh, serve the food, wait on the customers, those sorts of things.

That would be a work-based learning experience. And, but, but the important part there is there, or a, a thing that really differentiates that and makes it a work-based learning experience is the fact that they’re serving these external customers and it makes it more of a, an experience more like they would have in the workplace.

Uh, and then there’s also cooperative education, which is specific to CTE programs and is an alternating paid work and classroom experience that’s part of their program. So those, that’s what we mean by work-based learning, uh, in Massachusetts.

Next slide, sorry. So a little about MEFA Pathway and our partnership with it, and you’re certainly gonna learn more, much more about it from, from the folks at MEFA. But it is a free college and career planning tool that helps students, uh, in grade six through 12 plan for academic and career success.

Importantly in terms of our relationship, Desi’s relationship with MEFA, we’ve adopted [00:17:00] it, uh, for our work-based learning, student planning and district reporting. And, um, our goal and expectation is that by the school year 27 28, all students in designated career pathways and federal and state funded or designated career connected learning programs should be completing their work-based learning plans and a pathway.

So this means schools that, um, receive Perkins fundings. If you have an innovation career pathway program, a career connections program, or um, or a career technical education, used to be called Chapter 74 programs, those are all examples of districts where, where we will be looking to meet the pathway to understand which students, how many students, uh, have participated in, uh, work-based learning, uh, in your school.

Um, I will also say in terms of reporting, just to be clear about this. The way it will work is the students are using Mefa Pathway for their work-based learning plan, choosing experiences, [00:18:00] um, maybe setting goals, getting feedback from the employer, doing all those things. But there wouldn’t be any additional reporting.

There wouldn’t be an an an additional step. The district would have to take specific for reporting. Instead, because of our relationship with MEFA, Desi’s relationship with MEFA, we’ll be able to sort of extract data from that. To understand, uh, when, what students participated in and, and what kind of experiences they had.

Um, so the, the really nice part about this, I think, or at least one of the nice things about this, is that there is no separate kind of reporting process schools would go through. Uh, instead, as the students use the, the platform to plan for and, and sort of move through their work-based learning experiences, we’ll be able to understand at a state level.

The kinds of experiences students are, are participating in and, uh, sort of the results of those, of those, uh, experiences. Okay. Next slide. Might be the last one.

Jennifer Bento: I think that [00:19:00] was the last one, Joe.

Joe Wyman: Thought.

Jennifer Bento: So, um, yeah, so maybe at this time we can, um, open it up to any questions that may be directed to Joe.

Um, see we have, we have one in the, in the qa. Lemme just read that aloud for you.

Okay. Question. We have had students participate in the Work-Based Learning Alliance paid virtual internship program outside of school hours, and therefore did not receive any school credit for this. Is there a way to utilize the, the WBLA opportunity as a school work-based learning experience? What would be the requirements?

Joe Wyman: Yeah, so the way it would work, I think, um, is that. You as a school would list that work-based learning Alliance experience as a work-based learning opportunity in Mefa Pathway. And the student would go in and select that experience for their work-based learning and then go through the rest of the process in the same way anybody else [00:20:00] would.

And then we would ex, then we would un see, be able to see from a data perspective, we’d be able to see that they participated in that particular activity. So. It doesn’t, while many work-based learning activities happen during school day, and we, we encourage that as much as possible to make it as accessible as possible for all students.

Um, there’s nothing about the MEFA Pathway platform or our definition of work-based learning that requires it to always be, um, during the school day.

Jennifer Bento: Okay, thank you. Um, another question came in, uh, if a district uses a different platform. Such as an audience, for example. Mm-hmm. Those, those records still need to be duplicated in MEFA Pathway.

Joe Wyman: So I would say there’s a, if you are continuing to use another platform, Naviance or something else for your my Cap process plan and applying to colleges, those sorts of things, you can still do that. Uh, but the expectation is the work-based learning [00:21:00] portion, uh, would specifically would be done through Mefa Pathway.

Um. So there are schools that are choosing that approach, at least initially. Uh, and uh, it would just require setting up a separate account with me. The pathway. It’s important to know that won’t cost districts any money. I think I already said this, but I’ll just reiterate it. So, if you were to con continue with a, a program that you’re paying for and then needed to adopt me for Pathway for Work-based learning, it wouldn’t cost you any additional money in terms of the, uh, you know, purchasing or, or subscribing to the platform.

Um, but we also as a, as Desi are recommending MEFA Pathway as our state resource for, for all these experiences. Uh, but ultimately that, that’s a choice the district will make.

Jennifer Bento: Great. Thanks Joe. And then another one. Um, I started adding internships in other opportunities in the, into mi a, uh, MEFA pathway.

Do they need to be vetted opportunities and should I not be doing that? [00:22:00]

Joe Wyman: Uh, I guess I don’t necessarily know what vetted means. I mean, I would, I, uh, so I would say you certainly can be entering into Mefa Pathway experiences that students select. That’s, that’s our goal to get to this point where districts are doing that.

So that’s certainly something we, we want you to do. Um, I guess I’m assuming any experience. You’re entering your, you know, you know, or have enough of a relationship with the organization or you, or they’re, you’re partnering with them maybe through your mass hire board or something like that, where you feel like it’s appropriate for students to, to participate.

Um, beyond that, I would just say, you know, go back to the definition or description I had of what work-based learning means or how we’re defining it as a, at Desi and, uh, ideally. Um, that’s really the career immersion piece though. But, so ideally those experiences, like the internship, the apprenticeship, whatever it might be, those should be sort of aligned with those work-based learning [00:23:00] definitions.

Jennifer Bento: Okay. Thank you Joe. And then just maybe if you could drive this point home, if your school is currently using another platform for work-based learning, will they be required to ch to change to meet a pathway?

Joe Wyman: So, yes, uh, the expectation is you will be using it for this. And what I’ll say is ultimately what we’re gonna do at DSI is look, well, we have an agreement with MEFA Pathway.

We’ll be able to look at data by school and for the state as a whole to say how many students are participating in work-based learning and what kind of experiences there, uh, they are, are they having. So if that’s in a different platform, um, we won’t see that data. We won’t, we won’t have any way of knowing that your students.

What your students are doing or what they’re participating in. And when we report the results of our, you know, of, of that data, um, it will be based on what’s in Mefa pathway. Additionally, we, uh, started last year or the year before for, uh, grants from the [00:24:00] Career Office of College, career and Technical Education.

Um, funding cannot be used to pay for other pathway or other platforms. Um, so you won’t be able to use funds from CCTE, at least to pay for those if you’ve used that in the past. Um, and that’s, but that’s by 27, 28. It’s not, you don’t have to change tomorrow. We’re, we’re giving you a little bit of a runway.

Um, we started this transition, um, before last school year. So, um, we’re, we’re trying to give districts time to make this kind of adjustment.

Jennifer Bento: Okay, couple more here. Um, so Capstone. Capstone sounds great, but seems to be made for tech vocational schools. And being in a town with a tech school placements are very hard to come by suggestions on finding placements and getting more local industries on board to host our students.

So

Joe Wyman: I’m, I’m not sure if I’m understanding the question quite correctly or not, but I’ll just, I’ll say a couple things. One. [00:25:00] Capstones are not specifically for technical schools. There are lots of schools that are not technical schools that use the kind of industry engaged, um, capstone process that I’m describing.

Um, if you’re a school happens to work with PLTW, they have a capstone class that is industry engaged, that’s designed that way for you. Um, I’m not trying to tell you you should use PLTW, I’m just using it as an example. Um, and those programs are. I think all in non-technical schools, I’ve never seen PLTW in a text world.

Maybe it is in some, but, uh, none of none of the ones that I know of. Um, so you definitely can do a, a work-based, or sorry, employer engaged capstone in a non-technical school. With that said, uh, there’s also value in having students if you can, um, go outside the school and to have, uh, uh, work-based learning experiences.

Onsite at employers. So in terms of engaging employers, um, it is a challenge, there’s no doubt. Um, one of the, the first thing I would say is if you don’t have a [00:26:00] partnership, a sort of robust, robust partnership with your mass hire board, I would encourage you to reach out to them, um, and sort of establish that relationship and start talking about employers that you might engage with.

Another example, another suggestion. That can be, I don’t wanna underplay how challenging it can be, but if you can have a staff member go out and introduce themselves to, to employers you want to engage with, um, and start building that relationship, I think that can be really helpful. Um, I would also suggest, um, there, this is more common in career technical education.

It’s actually required in career technical education is, uh, having pacs. These are groups of employers that support your program and that are. Um, that work in the same industry as the, as the, um, as the program. So if you have an electrical program, then you have some industry partners that, uh, work in the electrical field, right?

But other schools can have similar things. That’s [00:27:00] not a requirement, but they can have, uh, industry partners that they meet with regularly and build relationships with to support work-based learning, to support my cap, um, to support other initiatives you might have in your school. When I worked in a district, we had a pack.

We had, uh, three different innovation career pathway programs, and we had representatives for each of those pathways that sat on it. And they helped us Devon, uh, develop work-based learning experiences and, and our my CAP experiences. Um, and then also hosted our students. So that’s certainly an another approach.

And then finally, I would say work with industry organizations, um, to try to find industry partners. Um, even, you know, like local, um, God, I can’t think what they’re called right now, like local collections of businesses, um, that, uh, maybe they can help build relationships with others in your community.[00:28:00]

Jennifer Bento: Okay. Thanks Joe. That was great. Um, we have a couple questions that came in that we will address within our, um, myth pathway presentation. So the, um, we’ll show that, uh, we’ll come to that in just a little bit, and then we’ll have, let’s see. So many CTE schools have adopted Job 360. Will the data be able to merge or is the expectation that they will move over to MEFA Pathway?

Joe Wyman: So I don’t know a lot about Job 360. I, what I’ve heard about it is that there are certain functions in it. Like, you know, checking in and out of your work-based learning that you may choose to continue to use. But in, in, in terms of understanding, um, who participated, what pro, what, um, sort of experience they participated in, um, we will need that to be a MEFA pathway.

Jennifer Bento: Okay. Thank you. [00:29:00] Mm-hmm. Um, this is per ICP internships. There is the a hundred hour minimum requirement. Are there any specific minimum hour requirements for non ICP work-based learning experiences?

Joe Wyman: I mean, so I’ll say a couple things. One, we always encourage a minimum of a hundred hours. That’s when, when I, if you went back to what I, how I defined it, I didn’t make that specific to ICP.

Um, instead we encourage a hundred hour internship whenever possible. We require it in some of the pathway programs like ICP as you mentioned. Um, I was also wanna say another, just mention something else about work-based learning. I know that many schools have opportunities for students to work in part-time employment in their senior year.

If they have enough credits to graduate, if they’re, if they have sort of, they can fit it in their schedule. So, um, I, you know, I think ideally, work-based learning experiences will [00:30:00] be, uh, aligned with a career they’re potentially interested in pursuing after high school. Um, but you, you know, if they’re doing a part-time employment that may not be aligned, I would still encourage you to incorporate it in the work-based learning plan within MEFA Pathway and think about how you could make it.

Um, you know, how you could develop learning targets, uh, how you could support students getting feedback from employers and having it, uh, a more work-based learning like experience. Um, so that’s not really answering exactly the question that they were saying, but I did wanna mention that.

Jennifer Bento: Great. Thank you.

Um, and then really, I think we have just one more. Is there a way to report my cap completion in Sims?

Joe Wyman: There is a way to, to, um, report my cap participation. You can report students as enrolled in my cap, um, or not in, um, in Sims there’s a, there’s a field that, I don’t think there’s a way to say they completed it, but I think the presumption would be if a [00:31:00] student is enrolled, you know, at least all four years of high school that they are completing their My CAP process.

Um, but I don’t think you can say yes or no, they didn’t. At least not yet. Um, yes or no, they didn’t. They completed it.

Jennifer Bento: And I’ll add on to that, that, um, MEFA pathway is compatible with that DSI Sims file. So if you have data, you know that you wanna upload within mi a pathway from that file, you can do so.

That’s an option. It looks like we, our question bank is clear, so that’s wonderful. Uh, we have poll number two up. Thank, thank you, Joe. That was, that was great. Thanks so much. Thank you everybody. A lot of super information. Um, so poll number two is up. If you haven’t already, uh, answered our two questions, please do so.

This, um, you know, this, this is so valuable to us to have. So thank you for taking a minute to answer the poll. And we are going to move on to our next [00:32:00] section here. So, uh, getting started with Amfa Pathway. So we’re gonna talk about MEFA Pathway a bit. Joe did a really nice job in giving, um, you know, giving some, some bits on, on MEFA pathway.

Um, but Mi Mefa Pathway is a a com, a comprehensive college career planning web tool. Um, it’s an open. Platform for Stu for students in grades six through 12. Uh, MEFA Pathway embraces and supports all post-secondary plans. So, and best of all, it is completely free and it’s part of MI a’s, uh, suite of college and career planning tools.

So you are welcome to create your own student test account on MEFA pathway.org. Just go there, click, uh, register as a first time user and um, you can. Establish your own test account and, and explore, uh, the tools that we have within. Okay, so getting started with me, MEFA Pathway. How are you going to do that?

All right, so, um, although that the [00:33:00] platform is open to anyone, uh, schools must sign our agreement in order to have access to what we call the counselor Portal, uh, in becoming one of our affiliate schools, uh, this is still cost free. So if you are a district or a school that’s interested in learning more about becoming an affiliate school, um, you would just submit a request, a demo form, and you can find that on our, um, main pre login page.

Um, it’s, it’s very big. It’s at the top and at the bottom just request a demo form. And, uh, either Andrea or myself will be in touch as, um, she and I work with the schools, uh, directly. Uh, we do have specific user roles that are available. What for varying levels of permissions, and we have two user roles that are specific to work-based learning.

So when a school onboards with, with us, with Mefa Pathway, they identify the educators that you would like to have access to the [00:34:00] counselor portal, and we create those accounts, so varying levels of permissions. Um, and we have our, our email address here on the slide. Um, and you can always get in touch with us, but again, if you’re interested in, in learning more or you know, speaking to us about MEFA Pathway, that request a demo form is the way to do that.

Alright, so now we are going to go into our live demo and just bear with me for half a second here while I transition to the next. Spot here and a is gonna lead us through this, this section here.

Apelila Joseph: Okay. Thank you Jennifer. Um, so for the portion of the live demo, we are going to start, um, in the counselor educator portal.

So we’ll talk a little bit about how you build out your work based learning database. Um, then we’ll dive into the student portal just to see what students [00:35:00] see once those opportunities are added. Um, and then we will go to the employer portal and then, um, end with, um, just overall general oversight and management of work-based learning opportunities.

So Jennifer is in our, uh, counselor portal. Um, so we have, um, a work-based learning database page. So there’s two ways to access it, either under the tool section or under the admin tab. Um, so once you open the page, you are presented with all of the work-based learning opportunities within your database.

Um, there is an export button at the top of the screen. Um, so newer this fall, we added an import export function. So for schools that might be transitioning to MEFA Pathway from another platform, you can import, um, all of your opportunities in to make that a little bit easier. Um, or for, um, districts that have multiple schools participating, uh, you can upload the same.

File into each [00:36:00] school. Um, or you can manually add opportunities by scrolling down to the bottom and clicking the add new button. Um, Jennifer, if you just wanna open an already populated opportunity, that might look a little bit better. Um. So when, um, folks are adding in opportunities to the database, there are a handful of required fields that must be filled out.

Um, so things like the opportunity, name, description, eligibility criteria, the type, so is this an internship, a job shadow, a guest speaker? Um. You can select the career cluster as well. Uh, so these career clusters align to the most recent career cluster framework that was released. Um, and so they’re though, they are the same clusters that you would see in like O net today.

Um. And then there are lots of optional fields. And so these optional fields you don’t have to fill out. Um, anything that you do fill out will be presented to students. Anything that you choose to skip will not [00:37:00] be presented to students. Um, so you can add in things like. You know, the company or organization name the address if there is a contact person.

Um, so some schools you might want a specific teacher or a counselor to be the contact person rather than listing an external person. Um, so totally up to the discretion of the school. Um, the last requirement is whether or not the opportunity is active or not active. So if it’s active, it will display to students.

Um, and then of course you can add an attachment. So if there’s a flyer or something that you want to be able to share with students, you’re able to add that attachment in as well. Um, and then, yeah, you can just return to the list. So that is building out the work-based learning database. Again, you can do that either through the import function, um, if you have a bunch of opportunities already, or you can always manually go in and add them one by one.

So we are going to dive into the student portal now [00:38:00] to look at what students see once that database is created. So Jennifer is logging into Alice. Um, and so this, and I, we’ll go full circle back to, to additional management opportunities for, for the school or or district. Um, so you can just click okay on that, Jennifer.

So Alice is an 11th grade student. So we are going to jump into the work-based learning section, so that lives under the Discover Careers tab. Uh, and then you just select work-based learning opportunities. Um, so as you can see, there are 17 opportunities listed in our MEFA Academy data. Uh, on the left hand side, students can filter by the type of opportunity by career cluster location, if it’s paid or not.

Um, and then they see a little preview of each opportunity, um, in the center of the screen. So the name, the type, the career cluster, if it’s paid, and then if there’s an application deadline. From this screen, students can quickly save any [00:39:00] opportunities of interest to their list, or they can click into the opportunity to learn more.

So there’s a short little card view at the top, just giving high level information. And then as students scroll down, they can see the more detailed information. So a description, any eligibility requirements, and then how to access the opportunity. So if there’s an application, URL, if there’s a company website listed, a contact person, um, or A PDF.

If students find the opportunity of interest, they can choose to save it to their my opportunities list within Mefa Pathway. Um, and then once they save it, if you wanna pop over to my opportunities. Once they save it, students will come to their my opportunities page to manage, um, all of their work-based learning opportunities.

Um, so they have a nice little table here. Um, a couple things to point out about the table. So there is an added by column. So that notification that Jennifer saw when she first logged in as a school, you do [00:40:00] have the ability to add an opportunity to a student’s, uh, work-based learning list. Um. So if you have, you’re working with a specific student, you meet with them.

Okay, Johnny, this internship opportunity is great. You can go in and add that directly to their, to their list. Um, there’s also a status column. So this is really where students will manage their opportunities. So if they are applying to something, if they’re just interested, if they plan on attending, um, if they have completed the opportunity, so maybe they did an internship last year, they can update that to completed.

Um. And then once students select hired or will attend, um, that will prompt the my plan column to populate with the open button. And so this is where students would build out their work-based learning plan. And then I’ll also just quickly add, um, by clicking the heart or favoring any opportunity that will pin it to the top of the student’s list.

Um, so if there’s a new opportunity that they’re working on, you know, [00:41:00] this semester, they can pin that to the top of their list. Hey Jennifer, if you wanna open up the work-based learning plan. So within the work-based learning plan, uh, there are really two steps, two sections, the student evaluation section, and then the employer evaluation section.

So we’ll start on the student side. So on the student side, students have the opportunity to add their school supervisor just by clicking the edit button. They can add their name and email address. Um, and then they are, there are three, uh, evaluations that students can complete. The initial evaluation is really about.

Goal setting. So students will go through it’s three questions, you know, what skills you bring to this internship. You know, what are maybe two to three goals that you hope to achieve, um, and what skills are you looking to grow? Students can edit this form, um, as many times as they need to. So sometimes not everything is completed in one sitting.

Um, so they can edit, save it, and come back to it. And then [00:42:00] once they submit it, that will lock the form from any further editing. Uh, the midpoint and the final evaluation, um, have an opportunity for students to rate their skill growth. Um, so that’s them doing a sort of a self-assessment. Um, we also have an info icon next to the reflection column, so if students are unsure of what to write for a reflection or how to get started, um, there are some helpful tips there as well.

Um, I will also call out, um, an enhancement that’s coming, and I honestly should have started with this. Um, with everything in MEFA pathway, it is totally driven by user feedback. Um, so we do have an enhancement coming later on this spring for the industry and technical skills. So at the bottom of the midpoint and final evaluation, there’s, there’s two.

Um, two spaces for those industry or technical sales. And so that [00:43:00] will, um, be a, uh, predefined list that students or educators can select from. So when you’re adding in those opportunities, you’ll have the, um, ability to pre-select that industry or technical skill, um, on the front end. And then students will see it as they’re going through their evaluation.

Um, and then again, the, it works the same way as the initial evaluation. You can edit and save as many times as you need to, and submitting the form will lock it from any further editing. So I’m gonna go back to my plan. Now the employer evaluation, um, works a little bit different. Oh, nope. If you just wanna state in the, my plan just for a second.

Sorry about that. Thank you. Um, so students will invite their work site supervisor to our employer portal so they can fill out their name, their email address, and then. Where it says sent, there’s a typically a button first that says invite, um, and then you’ll get a, a date and timestamp of when that [00:44:00] employer invitation was sent.

Students can view completed employer evaluation forms directly in the student portal. Um, so everything is just view only that the employer completed. Um, so they, they can view all of that once that’s done and then. After we go through the employer portal, we’ll circle back to, um, school oversight. Um, for, for all of this.

So Jennifer, if you wanna hop into the employer portal. So once students click invite, employers will receive an email invitation to our employer portal with instructions on creating an account. Account creation is pretty quick and easy. It’s just a one page, basically asking for their name, email address, company that they work for, um, that sort of thing.

Once they log into the employer portal, they’ll be presented with their dashboard, which has the student’s name, the school that they attend as employers might work with [00:45:00] students from multiple schools. And then they’ll see their initial midpoint and final evaluations by clicking on the status. So if you were to click on, do you wanna Go with Alice or Lizzie, whoever, um.

If you click on the status that will launch the evaluation, they look very similar to the student’s evaluations. And again, the employer can edit and save as much as they need to. And then once they submit the form, that will lock it from any further editing. The midpoint and the final evaluation, um, look very similar to the student.

Again, the employer is rating the student, um, on their achievement level, um, and then providing comments or feedback back to the student.

And then I will also add, um, by clicking the Chevron next to your name, um, folks can access, uh, the resource library. So within the resource library, we do have some videos and instructional guides, [00:46:00] um, that, that folks can use if there are any questions. Um, so let’s pop back into the counselor portal ’cause we’re coming down to.

Time almost. Um, so from here we’re gonna look at the, the student’s case or student’s record. Um, and this is where you can really manage, um, everything related to a student’s work-based learning experiences. Um, so by clicking on the work-based learning page, and again, depending on your user role, what you see on that left hand navigation might look different.

Um, and so from here you can see all of the opportunities that students have added to their opportunities list. Um, as an educator, you have the opportunity to manually add an opportunity directly to their list from here by clicking that add new opportunity button. Jennifer, if you just wanna click it. So from here you can see all of the opportunities within your database that are active.

Um, and then you can [00:47:00] just click the checkbox, um, and then click add opportunities. So very simple to add an opportunity directly to a student’s list. Um, if you wanna hit cancel, Jennifer. Perfect. And then from here you also have the option to view and have oversight of everything. Um, so if you have a student that’s working with an employer, um, you can come in here directly to see, um, all of the student’s evaluation answers.

You can also see employer evaluation answers, um, the status and you can edit anything as well. So we’ve heard directly from some of our schools where, you know, my employer, they just email us feedback. They’re not gonna fill out the employer evaluation. Um, you can certainly come in here and, um, add in any feedback that you receive via email as well.

If you wanna just scroll down, even going to the employer evaluation part is fine. [00:48:00] Um, so just to give you an idea of what it looks like. Um, so again, it, it pretty much mimics what students are seeing or employers are seeing in their evaluations, and then you have the ability to come in and edit anything that you need to.

Um, we’ve also heard concerns about, you know, what if the employer, you know, shares, you know, harsher feedback than, you know, what a student, um. What you feel a student should be receiving or it’s not phrased in a, a kind way. Um, you can certainly come in and edit anything that you might need to. Um, so that is the work-based learning page within the student’s case.

Um, and again, you can come in and do this for any opportunity that has been added, and then we also have our reports page. So I’m gonna try to fly through that and then I, I know we have some questions in the. Q and a. Um, so within our reports page, MEFA Pathway has some standard reports, um, that we [00:49:00] don’t have to dive into.

Um, but there are sort of the standard reports even around work-based learning experiences. And then we have the custom work-based learning reports that we, um, built in partnership with desi. So the first six reports are aggregate reports. Um, so if you were to click on like the saved opportunities report.

Um, it will give you a, just the, the summary number of students that have saved each type of work-based learning opportunity. Um, and then we also have, um, the last two reports. So student opportunity status, and then the student evaluation growth report. Our, our student level report. That will show, um, for the evaluation growth report, it will show both the student and the employer evaluation scores.

Um, so that’s helpful as well. So if, if students are doing these work-based learning. Opportunities, and maybe you’re also giving them a grade for a course. Um, and you wanted to just see, you know, did they do their [00:50:00] scores or did they, you know, high level, just complete the evaluations, nevermind their answers.

Um, you can also, um, look at that from these work-based learning reports. And then we also have the ability to, um, build out any custom reports that might be needed. Um, and so those can live under. You know, your school’s reports or just directly, you know, for a specific user. Uh, Jennifer, what am I missing?

Jennifer Bento: That was pretty thorough.

Apelila Joseph: Okay.

Jennifer Bento: Yeah, we do have a number of questions. Um,

Andrea Keenan: I do wonder, a if you could go back briefly to the student portal. We had a question about translation in different languages, so I think that just might be nice to demo for the counselor that, um, asked.

Apelila Joseph: Yes. So we do have site translation, um, in the top right corner, um, in a variety of languages.

Again, I will say this all the time, I probably didn’t say it enough this [00:51:00] morning. Um, we make changes based off of direct feedback. Um, so if there are, um, addit additional languages that might be needed, um, for your student populations, um, please share all of that feedback with us. Um, we will. Add and make tweaks, um, directly based off of what users are needing.

Andrea Keenan: Thank you. Yeah. And these translations are really a top notch. Um, we have that on good authority, um, by people that speak the languages. Um, and then. And also in the chat we have, um, just a few questions that, um, Joe’s, um, not on the call anymore, but, um, perhaps you can answer APLA about some reporting, uh, requirements.

Um, but first, before we get into that, there is a question around adding opportunities for students in the counselor portal. Um, this counselor asks, when adding an opportunity for students, I need to have more than one [00:52:00] career cluster, for example, advanced manufacturing. And healthcare, I can only add one.

I’m assuming. The question is, is there a capability coming down the line or currently where, um, counselors can contribute multiple clusters to a single opportunity?

Apelila Joseph: Yeah. So at this time you can only add one. Um, cluster at a time, or you can do the sort of all clusters if it’s like a career fair sort of thing.

But again, everything in MEFA pathway is based off of feedback and no one had ever brought that forward to us before. Um, so I can certainly take that back to the team and see how we can, um, fit that into our roadmap.

Andrea Keenan: Thank you. Um, there’s another question about, um, can students, um, view any opportunities in their area or only ones that have been added by their school or district? That’s a great question.

Apelila Joseph: Yes, it is. Um, at this time, opportunities are limited to [00:53:00] what has been added by their school or district. Um, but that’s not to say that that is not, um, something that we.

That’s really like what we originally started talking about. Um, but it’s, it’s something certainly, um, that I think we, um, have on our future roadmap.

Jennifer Bento: That’s great. Yeah. The couple of these questions are fur would be directed towards, um, to Joe. When this becomes a requirement for CTE programs, will this replace co-op reporting requirements?

Apelila Joseph: Yeah, so I’m, I’m not even gonna attempt to, um, answer any questions that are really, um, Desi directed. Um, Joe Wyman’s email definitely is included in, um, the slides that will be shared out after this. Um, so I would, I would say any, anything really based around requirements and that sort of thing, [00:54:00] Joe is the best person to follow up with.

Um. I’m seeing one question. Does this work-based learning plan need to be used for the data be to be reported to desi? Um, and so I, I think work-based learning competencies for students to receive credit. So I, I think, um. So, so the different reports that are available within MEFA Pathway, um, some of them are around, you know, student saving an opportunity.

Some of the reporting has to do with, um, students actually completing those work-based learning plans and those evaluations. Um, so Joe definitely would be the, um, better person to answer, um, that specifically. Um. But, um, we also, for, in terms of the competencies, that’s, that’s what’s drawing my eye, um, for some of our future enhancements.

We’ve been working with Desi around those, um, [00:55:00] adding, um, some of that in, um, on, on the front end. So, so schools can select, um, some of that on the front end and then students are just evaluating themselves. Um, so some of our future enhancements might speak to, um, some of what you have listed in that question.

Jennifer Bento: Okay, that’s great. And then there’s, just for one more, um, for co-op, we send out an evaluation form every four weeks. In order to generate a grade for a student, I would be reluctant to ask an employer to fill out the mefa pathway evaluation in addition to the forms we send. We also want more feedback than just two times over the course of a school year.

Is there a way to have employers submit weekly or bimonthly evaluations?

Apelila Joseph: So, um, potentially, um, ’cause we do have a sort of standalone form. Um, that’s, that’s one that I would love to follow up on just to understand, um, [00:56:00] what you’re having, uh, employers evaluate students on. Um, and then if what I have in mind, um, could potentially, um, answer that.

So let’s, let’s connect after this.

Jennifer Bento: That’s great. Okay. Oh, one more. Um, can we use the forms we have received from employers and enter the information into the system on our own?

Apelila Joseph: Yes. So, um, if students have, or really at this point, you can also add the opportunity to a student’s list, but, um, once the opportunity has been added, you do have the ability to go in and manually edit those forms.

So if you have like a paper form or something from an employer or they email you something, you can certainly copy and paste that in directly, um, on that student’s record.

Jennifer Bento: Great. We’re coming up on nine o’clock. Um, so next steps, interested in learning more. [00:57:00] Um, you can use the QR code right here, um, on the screen.

Um, this will bring you to the requested demo page. Um, again, we’ll be sending these slides out. You’ll have the recording, uh, also the requested demo. Form appears on um, mefa pathway.org on the counselor portal page there, the pre login page. Uh, so, and also I’ll just put a little plugin for, um, our team along with Joe, um, and, um.

Three schools. We have Shrewsbury, Husak Valley, and Barnesville High School will be presenting, um, work-based learning session at Masco, uh, this coming Monday. So we actually have two back to back sessions. So if you’re at Masco and you’re looking for a session at one 15, come join us. It’s gonna be great.

We’re really excited, um, to highlight these schools and, um, share their, um, you know, how they established their work-based learning program at their school. So I hope everyone enjoys [00:58:00] the day. Thank you for joining us here, here today. Um, and yeah, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, uh, for, for us, for Joe.

Um, that’s what we’re here for. And we just wanna help support, um, your, um, your work. So thank you so much.