ICAP Overview (Individual Career Academic Plan)
An ICAP is a multi-year process that guides students as they explore career, academic and postsecondary opportunities. Family, student and educators collaborate to develop the ICAP, which equips students with the awareness, knowledge and skills to create their own meaningful exploration of college and career opportunities. The ICAP is an evolving document that reflects students’ changing passions, aptitudes, interests and growth.
According to the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), when students complete a meaningful ICAP process, they accomplish the following:
- Connect the relevance of education to their future goals
- Create secondary and postsecondary course plans to pursue their career and life goals
- Strategically select a postsecondary pathway to align with self-defined career, college and life goals
- Establish better communication and engagement between school and home
- Understand and demonstrate career exploration and career planning.
Additionally the OSDE states that ICAP identifies student interests, skills, postsecondary and workforce goals and experiences that lead to a meaningful plan that charts the progress needed to prepare students for college, career and life. It should include:
- Career and college interest surveys
- Written postsecondary and workforce goals and progress toward those goals
- Scores on assessments (required state and federal assessments and a college and career ready assessment)
- Experiences in service learning and/or work environments including apprenticeships, internships, mentorships, job shadowing and others
- Intentional sequence of courses that reflects progress toward the postsecondary goal (this may include identified career pathways or career endorsements)
- Academic progress
ICAP (Individual Career Academic Plan) Benefits
The ICAP process will be beneficial in several aspects.
The benefits to students include:
- Engagement, motivation, and efficacy in their academic work
- Challenging coursework
- Relevance of coursework to career goals
- Improved communication skills
- Goal setting and planning skills
- Clarification of postsecondary and career options
- Develop personal interests, skills, and abilities
- Improved relationships with educational personnel
The benefits for K-12 Educators include:
- Improved communication with students
- Reduced disciplinary problems
- Enhanced parental involvement
- Improved academic engagement with students
- Improved graduation rates
The ICAP benefits Postsecondary Educators because entering postsecondary students:
- are more rigorously prepared,
- are less likely to need developmental coursework
- have a better understanding of and engagement in pre-college activities,
- are more likely to have gained college credit while in high school.
To view the ODCTE Benefits of Individual Career Academic Plan document – click here
Resources and Links
Oklahoma State Department of Education ICAP page – http://sde.ok.gov/sde/new-skills-classroom
Oklahoma State Department of Education ICAP Overview PDF – click here
OklahomaCollegeStart.org – https://secure.okcollegestart.org/
ICAP – The Why? Dr. Don Raleigh, Pryor Public Schools Presentation
OKCollegeStart.org ICAP – by OKCollegeStart.og