State Spotlight on: Minnesota FastTRAC

Minnesota's FastTRAC (Training, Resources, and Credentialing) Adult Career Pathways program is transforming the lives of educationally underprepared adults. FastTRAC is a statewide partnership of Adult Basic Education (ABE) workforce development and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) systems, including non-profits and human services. It is focused on improving outcomes for low-wage, lower-skilled adults through a career pathways approach that integrates basic skills education and career specific training. Minnesota’s statewide vision is that every two-year MnSCU institution will have one or more FastTRAC Adult Career Pathways programs leading to certification in high-growth, high-demand occupations.

FastTRAC offers:

• A pathway back to work strategy, pairing an adult basic education (ABE) instructor with a community or technical college instructor to provide comprehensive support services.
• Local programs that consist of a series of connected in-demand occupational training programs that allow adults to advance over time to successively higher levels of education and employment.
• Programs that target industries important to local and regional economies, providing effective supply chains for employers in need of skilled labor.

Minnesota FastTRAC began as part of the Joyce Foundation’s Shifting Gears Initiative, a multi-state policy change effort to reform the way adult education is delivered in five Midwestern states. The Joyce Foundation provided an initial planning grant to FastTRAC in 2007 and continued to support its efforts until the conclusion of Shifting Gears in December 2011. The state of Minnesota is leveraging multiple resources to expand and sustain the FastTRAC Adult Career Pathways program across the state.

As ACP programs have evolved through the FastTRAC model, key components, bridge instruction, integrated instruction, and comprehensive support services have become standardized. Because of this model, FastTRAC programs report promising results:

• Of the 807 learners who have enrolled in a bridge course, 540 have completed and moved into an integrated ABE/MnSCU course – a success rate of 67 percent.
• In the ABE/MnSCU integrated model, 415 adults were served as of August 2011, and 364 adults have completed an integrated instruction course – a success rate of 88 percent.

This month, sites across the state are responding to an RFP that will fund ACP projects using the FastTRAC Adult Career Pathways model. Partnerships will be expected to combine the three key components of the FastTRAC model:

1. Adult Basic Education bridge instruction that prepares adults for an integrated set of credit-bearing postsecondary courses. These courses are developed with partners, including employers and workforce development, and are delivered by ABE instructors. They teach foundational skills in reading, writing, and math within the context of the selected career pathway.
2. Integrated instruction that includes ABE content integrated in existing MnSCU college and technical gateway courses through accumulation of credits that are within a financial aid eligible program leading directly to a diploma or degree via stackable credentials. Development of integrated course outcomes is shared between MnSCU college and/or technical instructors and ABE instructors, as is course delivery.
3. Comprehensive support services delivered through navigator/navigation strategies.

As the state of Minnesota continues to expand the FastTRAC Adult Career Pathways program, it is mindful of the importance of supporting local partnerships and the individuals who lead them. Part of that support includes state-provided technical assistance to FastTRAC sites and a richly resourced website with online professional development training modules on the following topics: Integrated Instruction (currently available), Best Practices for Navigators (coming soon), and FastTRAC for Administrators (coming soon). To aid in sustainability and leverage the resources developed by FastTRAC Adult Career Pathways, the MnROC, or Minnesota Repository of Coursework, is providing an online collection of the instructional materials created and workshops offered by each local partnership (Examples of these resources can be found in the resource center at www.acp-sc.org).

Featured ACP Resource

The following instructional resource can be found in the Designing Instruction for Career Pathway's Adult Career Pathways Training and Support Center (ACP-SC) at www.acp-sc.org

ABE Contextualized Math Module: Welding—Finding the Area of Various Shapes
Developed by state of Washington ABE instructors for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

This standalone module provides scenario-based instruction to teach the mathematics concepts involved in finding the area of various two-dimensional shapes, including squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles, and working with measurements, fractions, and decimals which are tasks common in welding and construction. Each task is presented through a scenario-based problem that teaches/reviews the math skills essential to solving it. Practice problems are provided in both application and skill development formats, with answers available to allow learners to check their work. An assessment is included at the conclusion of the module. Audio narration is provided for workplace scenarios to support lower-level readers and ELL students. The module is in Microsoft PowerPoint format. The file can be shared with students for direct use, or instructors can use the PowerPoint file as a basis for lesson presentation.

Specific topics covered include: (1) Units of measure; (2) Formulas; (3) Multiplication of fractions; (4) Finding area; (5) Multiplication of decimals; (6) Finding circumference; (7) Problem solving; (8) Working with exponents; (9) Rounding numbers; and (10) Converting units of measure. The module is suitable for use in ABE (EFL I-IV) programs.

This resource is one in a series of 12 modules that teaches mathematics concepts within the context of occupations spanning the Health Science, Transportation, and Architecture/Construction career clusters. The series is accessible at http://www.acp-sc.org/resources/abe-contextualized-math-modules-welding-finding-the-area-of-various-shapes.html, or go directly to the welding module at: http://media.waol.org/6881/welding_area.ppt

Visit the ACP-SC Resource Center to find additional ACP instructional resources.