Projects

Project Overview

West Virginia’s Simulated Workplace initiative was designed to transform the traditional career and technical education (CTE) classroom into a real workplace environment, giving students an authentic workplace experience as they earn high school credit, work toward industry certifications, and in some cases, earn college credit. The initiative was a partnership of West Virginia’s Division of Technical and Adult Education Services, business/industry, higher education, and K–12 educators, where high school students were immersed in real workplace environments.

For the Regional Educational Laboratory–Appalachia, Insight worked with members of the West Virginia Department of Education to support the growth and quality of the Simulated Workplace Initiative. Insight worked on a series of projects designed to develop and use data and evaluation tools for coaches and educators, including work to—

• Design a research agenda illustrating how CTE prepares students for the workforce and help educators, students, parents, and industry partners understand authentic workforce development.
• Develop an evaluation plan for examining the impact of the Simulated Workplace initiative on student outcomes.
• Collect and analyze implementation data from the Simulated Workplace initiative.
• Develop infographics and an animated video to share data and information about the program.

Insight worked with educators and administrators across West Virginia to support a community of practice designed to address critical educational issues such as creating schoolwide cultural change, increasing student engagement and leadership, and transitioning instructors to become facilitators in the classroom.

Products

Final report, including implementation analysis of scaling up of Simulated Workplace; infographics; animated video