Promoting College and Career Readiness: Practical Strategies for the Classroom

With the recent legislative emphasis on college and career readiness (CCR) for all students and the continued poor post-school outcomes for students with disabilities, it is important for educators to have effective and practical instructional strategies that naturally encourage the development of CCR skills for all students. A number of states have defined CCR to include academic and non-academic skills that students must acquire in order to be successful in postsecondary education and employment (Mishkind, 2014). In response, Morningstar, Lombardi, Fowler, and Test (2017) recently developed a framework with six domains: Academic Engagement, Mind-sets, Learning Processes, Critical Thinking, Interpersonal Engagement and Transition Competencies. In this article, the authors will briefly describe the domains and provide an illustration of implementation with Ms. Carson, a high school special education teacher, as she and her colleague, Mr. Shepard explore how to practically and effectively encourage these skills within their classrooms.