Careers

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Objective: Students will explore some career possibilities by selecting a chosen career and looking at the impact of education and experience has on salary.

ESL Standard: To use English to achieve academically in all content areas: Students will use English to interact in the classroom.

Multicultural concept: Culture and Multiple Perspectives - Discuss how gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and physical abilities influence individuals expectations and choices of a career. Compare and Contrast these differences.

Critical Pedagogy: Students will find information that will help them choose a career and find out what they have to do to achieve it. They will figure out pay, education and experience necessary for their chosen field. Also they will know if their chosen career will support their chosen lifestyle. Does their career show their values they have? Because each student has different careers they will work individually to find information about their career.

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Introduction Activity: “Welcome to the World of Work” (approx. 20 minutes)

Materials: Old neckties knotted with a large loop that can slip over participant’s

head (1 for each participant.)

Labels for ties (see list below for trigger concepts): you’ll need at least 2 tie tacks for each label; paper coasters work well.

Instructions: Welcome the students to the “world of work” and give each a tie.

Instruct them to slip ties over their head and wear in front so

labels (tie tacks) can be seen.

Tell students to find the individual(s) who is wearing the same

label. After everyone has found a match, partners should talk about their labels. Instruct each pair to discuss or define the concept on their tie labels. Ask each pair to share their definitions with the class.

Trigger Concepts

You can make interesting “tie tacks” by attaching paper coasters

to the ties with safety pins; or use large, square, self-sticking labels. Write your own concepts on these tie tacks. Here are some trigger concepts to get you started.

General: value, need, want, goal, wealth, rich, asset

World of Work: career, resume, interview, minimum wage, paycheck, downsizing, skills, talents

“Tie mixer” by Tim Jahn

Activity:"To Get You Thinking." To help get students thinking more about their future plans for a career and where they are in the money management experience, a handful of M&M candies can help.

Have a large bowl of the candies. Invite each student to take some but to save them until further instructions. (With larger groups, you might have them go ahead and eat all but three of the M&M’s.)

Each M&M color represents a category:

Green ……………….personal goals

Dark Brown………..career or careers you are interested in

Yellow………………..hobbies and interests

Orange ……………..money management experience

Red……………………a fact about money

Blue…………………..have students select a category

Ask participants to share one fact about themselves for each M&M, according to the color chart. They are free to eat an M&M each time they share a fact with their group. This activity can be customized by changing the categories to meet specific needs.

Ask students if they have ever thought about how much they “earn” by coming to class? How much do you earn per class hour during their high school career.

Discuss with students that once they seriously begin to think about and write meaningful goals, they need to consider how they are going to make those goals (and dreams) become a reality. Help students arrive at the conclusion that with most of us, this is accomplished by earning and income from our chosen jobs and careers.

There are three major areas you need to explore.

1) Career Factors - with education, experience, and skills and interests being

some of the main factors. (Overhead "Influence On Career Selection" and

"How Education Pays")

2) Career Options - exploring "Hot Occupations" for today and the future, along with

consideration given to working for someone else versus being in business for yourself

(Entrepreneur).

3) Career Outcomes - examining what affects the paycheck you receive for your work

and efforts, along with understanding the importance of possible employee benefits

and the impact these benefits can have on our life.

Multiculturalism - Discuss how education is different from culture to culture. Do Careers that have a high social level in America or US society have the same level? (Example: Do doctors make the same amount or compare to those here in the US.)

What are the "Hot Occupations" in each culture or country? This is important to find out if a student plans to go internationally or plans on living somewhere other than the US.

How does education pay for the rest of your life? Ask students of they have ever thought about how much they “earn” by coming to class?

Average earnings of year-round, full-time workers age 25 to 34 years old

Highest Level of EducationAverage Annual Earnings

Less than 9th grade$15,875

9th to 12th grade (no diploma)$20,915

High school graduate$25,655

Some college, no degree$29,310

Associate degree (2yr degree)$31,215

Bachelor’s degree or higher$48,190

Your education will have a major impact on your earning potential. The more education you have the more career opportunities you will have to choose from and the ability to earn more.

Hot U.S. Occupations Through the year 2005:

OccupationsGrowth Projection

Personal and home-care aides119%

Home health aides102%

Systems analysts 92%

Computer engineers 90%

Physical and corrective therapy

Assistants and aides 83%

Electronic pagination systems workers 83%

Occupational therapy assistants

And aides 82%

Physical therapists 80%

Residential counselors 76%

Human services workers 75%

There are other factors you need to think about. They may have less impact on your career selection or job choice but they are still important. Some of these factors are listed in the following table.

Other Career Factors

Time
Availability / Some jobs are full time, others are part time. Some require 40 hours per week, others require more or fewer hours. Some are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., others have flexible hours. Some require a substantial commute or long periods of time away from home.
Costs / Some careers have more costs associated with them than others. You may find you must cover costs such as tools or appropriate clothing, continuing education or training, meals, transportation, and parking. In some careers, having an automobile is necessary to do the job tasks.
Risks / Some jobs have a high degree of risk related to safety. Others may have risk involving job stability.

Have students list three things about their future work they would like to achieve.

Activity: "Exploring Career ". Students will begin to identify their choice of career by completing the questions. They will think about what they are doing now to reach their goal and what they will have to plan to do in the future. You can also take students to the career center to explore different careers.

ESL Standard - expressing to the class what they like about their chosen career and dislikes or disadvantages. Following oral and written directions.

Guest Speaker: Invite Workforce Services in to speak to students about applying for a job, interviewing, resume writing, etc. If they can not come in go over how to fill out a job application, resume writing, dressing for a interview.

Assignment: Have students complete a “Job Kit”. If you have a computer lab/writing lab you will need to reserve it. Students can work on job application, resume, cover letter, etc. on a second day.

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