President's Message:
Hello Everyone!
I have to admit that even though I enjoy winter sports as much as the next person, those of us near the east coast have had more than our share of snow this year. I have shoveled more drifts and driveways than I really care to! We are even thinking about a performance test for snow shoveling and residential snow blower operators. Before you get your hopes up regarding those particular assessments, I’m just kidding!
We are excited about our new Wind Turbine Technician assessment that is being piloted right now and the new Mechatronics test is being developed. We have additional test titles available nationally for the first time, including Small Animal Science and Technical Theater. Those tests can be found at www.nocti.org/OtherTestTitles.cfm. Our new Teacher Tests are coming out this summer and we continue to add titles in our Pathway Assessment category.
We have a great list of topics prepared for our Special Topics for Teachers Web Seminar Series. Check out our new Teachers’ Corner on the NOCTI website (www.nocti.org/teacherscorner.cfm) for the web seminar schedule and other teacher resources. We are also offering the 2010 Performance Improvement Quarterly Web Seminars (see website: www.nocti.org/training.cfm). The 2010 Consortium of States Quarterly Web Seminars are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on March 23, June 22 and September 21, 2010. A link to the Consortium agenda topics can be found at www.nocti.org/consortium.cfm.
As I mentioned in the last Quarterly Newsletter, NOCTI will be represented at the Career Cluster Institute in June and will be presenting a couple of pre-session workshops. If you are at CCI in Denver, please look us up! We will have our “NOCTI National Year-in-Review” document available, along with a prototype for a state-level version of the report. These reports are intended to provide insight into the activity across the nation and in your states!
We have been working on our web page in an effort to make it even easier and quicker for our clients to find information they need. In addition to the “Teachers’ Corner” mentioned above, a link has been created for our work with the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE). Click here or look for the NRCCTE logo on our home page.
I’d like to share a little bit about our work with NRCCTE and our five state partners, Virginia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. We have great facilitators who have been working with targeted schools in each of those states with the goal of using assessment data more effectively to improve programs. If you think that your state would be interested in participating in a project like the one described on our NRCCTE web link above, please send an e-mail to me or to nocti@nocti.org .
I sincerely hope that your back is less sore than mine and that you had the opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues over the last few months. We look forward to continued service to the CTE community. On behalf of the entire NOCTI staff, I extend our sincerest wishes for a warm and verdant spring! Sincerely, |
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