SHOP TALK # 53:

Texas Chosen for National Career Awareness Project

Published April 7, 2011

Adult education in Texas has been selected to participate in an exciting professional development opportunity sponsored by the National College Transition Network (NCTN) at World Education. This initiative allows Texas and several other states to build their capacity to deliver career awareness and counseling using the Integrating Career Awareness (ICA) curriculum. 

The goal of the Career Awareness Project is to increase and improve adult learners’ career awareness and planning throughout all levels of English as a Second Language, Adult Basic, and Adult Secondary Education.  The project is designed to help adult education program staff incorporate career awareness and planning into instruction and counseling. 

The project kicked off with a webinar in January. Four local adult education programs are participating in the online course and related webinars.  All will work with NCTN to develop a plan for sustaining professional development offerings related to career planning; these will be shared with other local programs statewide. In addition, project participants will assist NCTN in identifying state-specific materials and information to compliment the ICA curriculum.  Another objective of the project is to respond to questions about how to connect the curriculum to state standards and other initiatives.

A mix of urban and rural programs and staff have been selected to participate in the project.  Texas team members include the following local programs: 

  • San Antonio ISD Adult and Community Education (San Antonio
  • Community Action, Inc. Adult Education Program (San Marcos and surrounding counties)
  • Kilgore College Adult Education (Longview)
  • Harris County Department of Education- Adult Education (Houston)

For additional information about the National Career Awareness Project, contact Texas LEARNS at (713) 696-0700.

SHOP TALK is a series sponsored by Texas LEARNS to highlight promising practices and address issues, concerns, and questions related to meeting adult learners’ needs for workforce development and successful transitions. For additional information or to request that a particular topic be addressed, contact Barbara Tondre-El Zorkani at btondre@earthlink.net