Looking to recruit students to your career and technical education (CTE) program with a preview day? Through our conversations with educators, we’ve picked up on a variety of tips and tricks to engage students during program preview days. Read on for ideas on how to make your preview day successful.
1. Credit for Working Tables
Giving students credit for working specific program information tables can keep them engaged during preview day. As an added bonus, interacting with community members can help students build soft skills and potentially provide networking opportunities.
2. Invite Industry Representatives
Invite industry representatives to preview day, encouraging them to talk about how the skills offered by your program relate to area careers. We’ve often seen that today’s students want to know how the topics they’re learning about apply to the real world and industry representatives can help illustrate that.
3. Spotlight Program Graduates
Having former students come in to talk about the program and what they’re doing now can inspire students and pique their interest. Even students currently in the more advanced program classes could help highlight what they’ve enjoyed and any fun or interesting projects they’re working on now.
4. Assign Student Ambassadors
Select some of your best students to be ambassadors. These students are tasked with going out into the community to help promote your program. Encourage ambassadors to connect with prospective students, giving the new students access to someone in the program who they can trust and relate to.
5. Invite The Media
Invite the media to get the word out about all your program has to offer. This broadens your reach to others in the community who didn’t attend preview day, including students and their family. It can also help garner community support for your program.
6. Highlight Hands-On Learning
Many students get excited about hands-on projects and tools they may get to work with. Highlighting any hands-on work your students will do in the classroom can spark prospective students’ curiosity. If you’re using hands-on learning aids in your classroom, bring them to the preview day and let students try them out! Here are some tools we recommend using to get students excited about a variety of CTE programs and teach them important job skills:
guideWELD® VR welding Simulator
The guideWELD VR welding simulator enables users to refine basic welding skills. Students at your preview day can test their welding skills, challenging each other to see who can get the highest score. Its video-game-like feel is sure to gain student interest. Additionally, it doesn’t require internet to operate, giving you lots of flexibility when it comes to setup locations.
John Paulus, a mobile manufacturing lab technician in Wisconsin, uses guideWELD VR to attract students to his program. “We’re trying to get these kids excited about getting skilled and getting into manufacturing careers. This equipment is enhancing our ability to do that,” said Paulus.
Read Paulus’s complete customer story to see how he uses technology to help students explore welding.
Wearable Auscultation Trainer
The Wearable Auscultation Trainer lets students practice rib palpation, stethoscope placement, and sound recognition as well as patient care skills. Preview day students can take turns trying on the vest and listening to the heart, lung, and bowel auscultation sounds that are engineered to sound correct through a stethoscope.
Bovine Injection Simulator
The Bovine Injection Simulator is a unique education tool used to teach proper cattle injection techniques; jugular, intramuscular, and subcutaneous injections; ear tagging; and growth implant basics. Have students at your preview day try their hand at ear tagging or let them palpate the simulator’s jugular pulse.
Denise Espinosa, a Texas vet tech teacher, uses the Bovine Injection Simulator and other Realityworks tools to recruit students to her program. “They’re such great visuals! They draw people to our table, start conversations,” said Espinosa. “We recently had a drive-through open house, and we took as many models as we could fit on a table, rolled our Bovine Injection Simulator outside – and everyone just lined up.”
Read Espinosa’s full customer story to see how she and her colleague, Melissa Barnett, prepare students for agriculture careers.
Shaken Baby
Use the Shaken Baby simulator and curriculum to help students understand the effects of only a few seconds of shaking on an infant’s brain. The simulator’s cries can attract attention to your table and the lights in its transparent head provide a clear visual of the damage caused by shaking. Students can even practice swaddling the simulator to soothe it!
Additional Resources
Looking for more resources to help recruit students and bring hands-on learning to your program?
- Watch our on-demand webinar Unlocking Career Paths: Hands-on Tools Your Students Will Love
- See how a college agriculture science program uses hands-on tools to attract students and bring lessons to life here
- Ready this customer story to see how a North Carolina CTE program uses hands-on tools to recruit students