What does teaching in Career and Technical Education actually feel like when you’re new to the classroom?

In this CHAT-CTE roundtable episode, we bring together teachers from different CTE programs to share new teacher perspectives on the realities of teaching — especially for educators coming from industry or post-secondary backgrounds.

This conversation includes:

• A construction trades teacher navigating vocational certifications, curriculum development, and the shift from job-site work to managing students
• An exercise science teacher balancing standardized testing, enrollment growth, and student motivation and career expectations
• A teacher leader who supports non-English-speaking students and works closely with new teachers across the school

Together, we talk about:

• The gap between industry experience and classroom reality
• Why teaching feels harder than expected early on
• The pressures new CTE teachers face in their first years
• How missing systems create stress and burnout
• Small structures that help new teachers survive and succeed

This episode is designed to normalize the learning curve and show new CTE teachers that struggle early on is not failure — it’s part of the process.

We’re building a growing CTE professional development community at chat-cte.com, with newsletters, blog posts, and courses focused on helping teachers build classrooms that actually work.

If you’re a new CTE teacher — or you support new teachers — this conversation is for you.

The middle of a CTE class is rarely quiet — and it shouldn’t be.

In this episode of CHAT-CTE, we break down the most challenging part of teaching for many CTE educators: the middle of the class period. This is where students are moving, working at different paces, using tools, and asking questions — and where teachers often feel overwhelmed.

This episode reframes the middle of class as organized chaos, not something to control, but something to design.

You’ll learn:

• Why movement isn’t the problem — unclear structure is
• How structured goals keep different activities moving in the same direction
• How to design purposeful movement using zones and shop flow
• How to pace the room without rushing or micromanaging
• Why your role in the middle is to be a conductor, not a cop
• What to fix first when the middle breaks down

This episode is especially helpful for CTE teachers who came from industry and are learning how to manage active, hands-on classrooms without burning out.

We’re building a growing CTE professional development community at chat-cte.com, with newsletters, blog posts, and courses designed to support teachers where they actually need it.

If your class feels busy but unproductive — this episode will help you design the middle so it actually works.

How a CTE class starts determines how the rest of the period — and often the rest of the year — unfolds.

In this episode of CHAT-CTE, we begin a three-part breakdown of every successful CTE class: the opening, the middle, and the close. This episode focuses on the opening — the routines, expectations, and systems that establish control, clarity, and calm from the moment students walk in.

You’ll hear:

• Why the bell doesn’t actually start class — your system does
• How to design an opening that works even when students arrive late or distracted
• The expectations that need to be set early and defended all year
• Proven, practical ways CTE teachers start class successfully
• Why resistance to new routines is normal — and how to make systems stick

This episode is especially useful for CTE teachers who came from industry and feel like classroom management is harder than it should be.

We’re also beginning to build a growing CTE professional development community at chat-cte.com, with newsletters, blog posts, and courses focused on helping teachers build classrooms that actually work.

If you want your class to feel calmer, more predictable, and easier to run — this is where it starts.