Lennon Audrain understands how high school students can be leveraged in classrooms. Before working as a research assistant professor at Arizona State University and program manager for its Next Education Workforce™ initiative, he worked as a career and technical education teacher at Skyline High School in Mesa Public Schools. And before he worked as a teacher, he served as the national student president of Educators Rising, an organization supporting students interested in education-related careers.
“All of that has given me a really full-circle perspective: I was once a student leader in the pathway, then a teacher of the pathway, and now I get to help shape the future of the pathway,” Audrain shares. “If you care about student outcomes right now, CTE pathways represent a huge untapped opportunity: high school students ready and eager to contribute when given the right preparation.”
An upcoming webinar hosted by the leaders of the Community Educator Learning Hub, an award-winning online learning platform developed by the Next Education Workforce, will highlight resources relevant to CTE education professions pathways. The free webinar on Wednesday, Oct. 29, will also include a demonstration of the Hub’s nanocourses and time for questions at the end.
Lauren Conn, the senior project manager for the Community Educator Learning Hub, shares that the webinar is a great opportunity for CTE directors looking for training resources for CTE students in education professions programs.
“These resources serve as foundational training resources to introduce students to pedagogical concepts. If they have an interest in teaching, this can be an accessible way for them to be introduced to these strategies and also be able to immediately put them into practice with younger students,” Conn says. “It’s nice to be able to offer training experiences that can be complementary to the synchronous and live educational experiences that they’re having in their CTE classes.”
As the CTE Education Professions Teacher at Skyline High School, Audrain used the Community Educator Learning Hub as an integral tool to help upskill students before and during their time in classrooms.
“What worked so well was the accessibility: modules broken into 15-minute chunks that fit perfectly as bell work or end-of-class activities. Students could engage with a piece of content in class and then immediately try it in the field. It gave them just enough structure and confidence to step into classrooms with real tools in hand, and teachers noticed the difference,” Audrain says.
Audrain was able to further leverage the Community Educator Learning Hub to help students step into specific role-based field experiences. For example, high school students who might be tasked with helping younger students with reading were assigned nanocourses from the Hub that taught them best practices for leading small groups.
“It was a way to be responsive to the needs of the school community where students were placed, while also giving our high schoolers clearer responsibilities and training aligned to those responsibilities. Students felt more confident, made more contributions and had a sense that these roles were both manageable and meaningful,” Audrain says.
Outside of Arizona, partners have also integrated the Community Educator Learning Hub to train graduate, undergraduate and high school students who are working with younger students in nearby districts.
“It’s this really neat multi-level partnership where you have high school students, undergraduate students and graduate students all supporting younger students as high-impact tutors. They’re using the Community Educator Learning Hub nanocourses that are aligned to evidence-based strategies for high-impact tutoring, and they’re also giving tutors the opportunity to earn a high-impact tutoring micro-credential,” Conn shares. “It’s also a beautiful opportunity for relationship-building in so many different directions: It’s the high school students with the younger students, the college students with the K-12 students, and the teachers with the tutors, as well.”
In addition to serving CTE education pathways students and programs, the Community Educator Learning Hub has also been used to upskill other CTE teachers, such as automotive mechanics and HVAC and electrical workers, to complement their deep content knowledge with best teaching and mentoring practices.
Learn more about the Community Educator Learning Hub and register for the free webinar today.
