Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education

Montana Workforce Development

Montana is pleased to announce this college and career initiative that allows students to achieve success by preparing them for secondary and postsecondary opportunities. By implementing Big Sky Pathways, schools have a strategy for improving high school completion rates and college and workforce readiness.

Career ClusterBig Sky Pathways are based on the work of the States' Career Clusters initiative. Career clusters are a way of reorganizing learning around programs of study that will prepare students for an ever more competitive global economy. Montana's programs of study--Big Sky Pathways--represent a recommended sequence of courses based on a student's personal interests and career goals. The idea is to connect what students learn in school today to what they aspire to do tomorrow, thus increasing engagement with school and motivation to achieve.

Contextual Learning provides the instructional foundation for Career Clusters. It is "a system of instruction based on the philosophy that students learn when they see meaning in academic material, and they see meaning in schoolwork when they can connect new information with prior knowledge and their own experience"(Johnson, 2002). Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) enhances the teaching and learning process, and gives students the knowledge, skills and ability to be flexible in the workplace. When the student is prepared for a career using this methodology, the transition from school to work is much easier. This also further aligns the educational curriculum with industry needs, effectively giving the student an advantage in the working world.

For an explanation of the Big Sky Pathway template, click here.

To download a Big Sky Pathway, click on the icon: