Program Schedule

We’ve all been told “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” This high energy presentation based on Sarita’s book provides practical approaches and positive phrases for those times when you need to say something NOT so nice. Learn how to have difficult conversations and to constructively clue someone in, deflect the negative comment of a well-meaning friend, or let a business colleague know what he or she is doing drives you crazy — without destroying the relationship.

This presentation will provide answers to such questions as:

• How do I know if I should confront a situation or just let it go?
• How can I soften the sting when giving negative feedback or bad news?
• What should I do if someone asks my opinion and I have nothing good to say?
• How do I tell my boss a thing or two without appearing ugly or insubordinate?
• What’s the best way to respond to nasty comments like “that’s a dumb idea,” “I knew you couldn’t do it” or “what were you thinking?”

Leaders at Indian Hills Community College have identified low technical communication skills as a significant barrier to some students’ success in CTE programs. The college has implemented a diagnostic assessment as well as a number of new strategies in target programs to address the issue. This conversation will discuss how CTE programs could benefit from utilizing competency assessment results and showcase the details of a program used at a rural community college. This dialogue will include start up processes, best practices, initial findings and strategies related to student support services and instruction to address technical literacy.

Scavenger Hunt will have members laughing, scrambling, and participating in a fun break. 

Prizes for winners!

Take a break without leaving your seat!

Relax with calming stretches and relaxation breathing to wind down after a busy day.

Your self care is important!

While we watch our educational systems change day to day in response to COVID-19, how do we answer the big questions we have all been hearing: “What do we teach now?” and “How do we teach it?”

In this session we will dive into strategies you can use to support the development of lesson plans tailored to distance, blended or socially distanced learning, while building capacity for high quality instruction in CTE. Empower teachers to find new ways to engage students, focus on the foundations of their industry course, and create meaningful and authentic industry based learning experiences and assessments. We will also discuss strategies you can use to build a collaborative network of instructors to tackle these challenges together.

You will leave the session with an action plan designed to help you tackle these questions, access to webinars you can share with your teachers on lesson planning and assessment, and resources to support lesson plan development.

This session will be useful for CTE resource teachers, CTE administrators and for county, regional or statewide CTE leaders.

Come visit the Ford Next Generation Learning Lounge and learn about our "special sauce." Engage in a variety of discussions around career academies, powerful employer/district partnerships and stop in to pick the 

brains of some of our Ford NGL community/district leaders for informal conversations.  Schedules are forthcoming for the Lounge so stay tuned!