The Penn Foster Blog

Last week, Penn Foster traveled to Arlington, VA to attend the 2016 National Job Corps Association (NJCA) Policy Forum. Having taken part in previous events including the 2015 NJCA Leadership Summit and the Job Corps 50th Anniversary celebration, we were honored to have another opportunity to meet with Job Corps center operators, advocates, community leaders, and policymakers to discuss the critical issues facing Job Corps today. Penn Foster CEO Frank Britt had the privilege of speaking at the opening session of the event.

In recent years, educational institutions are increasingly evaluated on job placement metrics. In an effort to prepare their learners for the job market, more schools than ever are implementing mentoring programs. When run well, mentoring programs have been proven to increase students' academic success, and improve enthusiasm while on the job for participants' post-graduation1. Given these proven benefits, some schools, such as Muhlenberg College, are requiring that all students participate in a school-run mentoring program for at least one semester. If your school is considering implementing a mentoring program, here are five easy tips to ensure your program's success:

High schools work hard at making sure students know their options after high school and preparing them to take that next step. Career colleges also play an influential role in providing these students with the tools and resources they need to continue their education. When career colleges and high schools work together for this common purpose, the chances for successful student outcomes is even greater.

During times of high unemployment, workers and job seekers commonly return to school to acquire new skills and become more employable. As the job market grows, college enrollment rates traditionally start to decline.

In order to stay competitive in today's marketplace, large corporations are jumping at the chance to partner with ed-tech providers and colleges to offer education pathway programs for employees. Multinational corporations such as Chipotle and Wal-Mart are investing in these partnerships in order to attract and retain talent.1 But this begs the question as to what small businesses are capable of in terms of providing similar opportunities. Certain niche providers are starting to pop up to cater to this sector, in order to reach working learners who happen to work at the local, family-owned coffee shop instead of a Starbucks.

In life no two people are the same: they support different teams in sports, like different foods, and even identical twins have differences. So when it comes to learning, "one-size-fits-all" doesn't work! According to Neil Fleming's Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic model,1 most people have a dominant learning style that falls into one of three categories:

The world connects, shares, laughs, and learns on social media. Why shouldn't educators be a part of the conversation? Some are, but more could benefit. When leveraged correctly, several popular social media platforms can be wonderful educational tools for enhancing student engagement and performance, and can even be used for establishing program credibility and thought leadership for education professionals. Learn how two of the most well-known social media platforms can help you augment student outcomes, and how to apply these tools in your everyday work.

Many people believe jobs in the retail or quick-service restaurant industries are meant to be short-term. This leads to high turnover rates in both industries, which in turn makes promoting from within difficult. Hiring managers in these industries may wish to institute certain programs to help them retain their best employees and groom them for management roles. With some inspiration from leadership, star workers can be long-term staff members.

Admissions directors at four-year universities and community colleges are facing more pressure than ever, the latest Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Admissions Directors found.1 Controversies over admissions practices and student loan debt are just a few of the numerous challenges admissions directors now have on their plate. While career schools may not face all the same challenges as their peer institutions, there are nonetheless many parallels and valuable insights they can draw from these findings.

Historically, classroom material has been designed to be taught by a teacher, not to be self-taught by the student. However, since students are capable of learning and contributing so much more to their educational experience than just passively memorizing and regurgitating material, the role of the educator is changing. This article dives into three core pillars of student empowerment and how educators can leverage these pillars to work in tandem with students to enable greater outcomes.