Lesson 7
Learning about Careers
Teacher Resources
| Resource | Description |
| Teacher Resource 7.1 | Guide: Arranging Guest Speakers |
| Teacher Resource 7.2 | Guide: Preparing to Be a Guest Speaker
Make It Local | Modify this document for your community. Updates require writing a description of your school and the students in your classroom in order to help guest speakers prepare appropriate remarks. |
| Teacher Resource 7.3 | Guide: Career Presentations Assignment |
| Teacher Resource 7.4 | Rubric: Career Presentations |
| Teacher Resource 7.5 | Presentation: Example Career Presentation (separate PowerPoint file) |
| Teacher Resource 7.6 | Bibliography: Learning about Careers |
Teacher Resource 7.1
Guide: Arranging Guest Speakers
Purpose and Planning
Classroom guest speakers are an important part of college and career education and a great way to introduce professions and career choices to your students beyond their assessment results and Internet research. Inviting guests to speak about their careers offers students an opportunity to practice professional communication and correspondence. It gives them a glimpse into the working world beyond the classroom and can have an enormous impact on students.
It is never too early to begin planning speaker visits. You should arrange the visits at least two weeks prior to the period you need the speaker to attend.
Prior to the visitor’s arrival, be sure to explain to the guest the intention of the class period and the focus of this lesson. Send the guest speaker any necessary logistical information (e.g., your contact information, directions to school, classroom number) and the information in Teacher Resource 7.2, Guide: Preparing to Be a Guest Speaker. Be sure to tailor the information in Teacher Resource 7.2 to your specific circumstances before sending it. Confirm the time with the speaker the day before and remind him to be prepared to discuss his own job histories, education, and training, and to be willing to share a few stories that illustrate some of his career highlights. Let him know that the students will be asking a number of questions and that his visit will be interactive.
Ideas for Finding Guest Speakers
– Ask your students if their parents would be interested in speaking to the class about their professions.
– Speak to adults who work in the neighborhood, such as local store owners, dentists, bankers, etc.
– Ask friends or check if colleagues might have friends who would like to volunteer.
–
Review the ACT Explore test results or other career assessments, including the earlier career assignments (Lesson 5), for your class to see if there are specific careers with a high incidence of interest among your students. Contact professional organizations or the local rotary club to see if they would be interested in sending a speaker.
Career-Related Video Resources
If a guest speaker cannot come to class during the time slot allotted for the visit in this lesson, you can show students career-related videos or have them watch the videos on individual computers using headsets. Here are some good sites for students to explore:
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Inside Jobs, Choose Your Career
http://www.insidejobs.com/
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Road Trip Nation
http://roadtripnation.com/explore/interests.php
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Career Videos: Career OneStop,
http://www.careeronestop.org/Videos/CareerandClusterVideos/career-and-cluster-videos.aspx
Teacher Resource 7.2
Guide: Preparing to Be a Guest Speaker
Purpose and Planning
As a classroom guest speaker, you will be introducing professions and career choices to students in a real and meaningful way. You will give students the opportunity to practice professional communication and to grasp the importance of planning for the future.
Prior to your visit, you will receive any necessary logistical information (e.g., confirmation of day and time, teacher’s contact information, directions to school, classroom number). Plan to dress in business casual attire or the attire of your profession. Students will be expected to ask questions, so you should also expect your visit to be an interactive one. Plan to spend 30 minutes in the classroom.
Your Audience
| Make It Local | Replace the orange italicized text below with appropriate information about your students and school environment. Then remove this callout and re-save the file before distributing it to guest speakers. |
Students in San Francisco Unified today speak 44 different languages and almost 28% of them are learning to speak English. Many of these children do not know people who work in professional fields or leadership positions, but the purpose of this course is to encourage them to aim high with college and career goals. The students want to hear about professions and worlds they are unfamiliar with.
The students you will visit are beginning to consider what they want to do in the future (to them, the future may refer to their early 20s). They may be basing their plans on previous performance without recognizing ways they can make a change (e.g., “I did badly in math last year, so I can never do a job that needs math” rather than “I did badly in math so I need to talk to the teacher and get extra help”). Many of these students are already employed part-time, and they are beginning to understand the connection between education and career. Your life and career experience can be a valuable example to them as they make these connections.
Your Role
– Describe what you do and what led you to enter this field. If you grew up and/or went to school locally, let students know where. It can help them relate to you.
– Explain which school subjects you use during a day-in-the-life of your profession, and what skills you learned in school that you use now. Think about how you can describe your profession in concrete, specific terms and use personal stories and anecdotes.
– Explain what type of education or hands-on experiences you needed after high school (e.g., college, training, apprenticeship) to prepare you for your job.
– If you can, provide visuals (photographs, sample documents, etc.), as they can help students to better understand your career. However, do not feel pressured to provide them.
– Identify a typical salary range for your career field (starting salary, highest potential salary, etc.).
– Be honest about difficulties you have faced. Students benefit from hearing about adults who had to overcome challenges in school or work. The message we want students to hear is that anyone can succeed with hard work, effort, and time.
– Answer students’ questions.
Teacher Resource 7.3
Guide: Career Presentations Assignment
Overview
In this lesson, students develop a brief presentation on a career of their choice. Students conduct research, determine reliable sources, and put together the following information for their presentation:
– The career or job title
– Career or job description
– Education or training needed for this career or job
– The average yearly salary for this career or job
– The career outlook (is it a career that will be in demand?)
– A Personal Assessment (does the career suit me? Why or why not?)
– A list of sources/bibliographic information
You will need to tell students what type of bibliographic format (MLA, APA, etc.) you expect them to use. You may wish to revise the “After You’ve Finished Your Research” section of Student Resource 7.2 to include an example of the format you want students to use for this assignment.
This presentation is an important component of the students’ portfolios.
Using Technology
This assignment is a perfect opportunity to incorporate technology into the course and help students to develop those skills. Therefore, the lesson is written so that students create a PowerPoint presentation to share with the class.
The lesson assumes the following to be true about the students/classroom:
– Students are familiar with the use of PowerPoint.
– Each student will have access to his/her own computer throughout the lesson.
Alternatives: Creating the Presentation
Every teacher and school will have different circumstances to deal with. Recognizing that, here are alternatives to consider so that your students can still benefit from the lesson:
– If students are unfamiliar with PowerPoint and it will be difficult to obtain computer time, students can create a poster with their information on it.
– If students need a refresher on PowerPoint, consider adding an additional period to help students get up to speed. This can be an excellent opportunity to have students teach each other if you have some students with more computer experience. Alternately, have students create presentations in Prezi or use other free presentation options.
– If only a limited number of computers will be available, consider allowing additional class time for students to prepare their presentations.
– Keep in mind that the presentations are part of the students’ portfolios, so you may need to make arrangements to store digital copies of the presentations, even if the presentations themselves are done on paper.
Teacher Resource 7.4
Rubric: Career Presentations
Student Name: __________________________________________ Date: ________________
| Exemplary | Commendable | Developing | Needs Attention | |
| Coverage of Subject Matter | Information is accurate, complete, and displays a thorough understanding of the career. | Information is accurate and displays an adequate understanding of the career.
| Information contains some errors and displays a partial understanding of the career. | Not enough information is provided; understanding of the career appears limited. |
| Visual Design | Graphics and design reinforce viewers’ understanding of the career and help to make the information presented easy to follow. | Graphics and design reinforce viewers’ understanding of the career but occasionally make the information presented difficult to follow. | Too many or too few graphics are used and don’t reinforce viewers’ understanding of the career. | Design of the assignment is messy. Graphics create confusion about the career. |
| Personal Assessment | Description of whether this career is a good fit is clear, refers to survey results, and shows good understanding of personal strengths and talents. | Description of whether this career is a good fit is clear, refers to survey results, and shows some understanding of personal strengths and talents. | Description of whether this career is a good fit is confusing but makes an attempt to link to survey results and personal understanding of strengths and talents. | Description does not explain whether the career is a good fit, does not refer to survey results, and implies lack of personal understanding of strengths and talents. |
| Citations | Preferred method of citing sources is followed exactly; assignment lists at least three sources. | Preferred method of citing sources is followed most of the time; assignment lists three sources. | Preferred method of citing sources is not followed consistently; fewer than three sources listed. | Citations do not follow preferred method; there are fewer than three sources listed. |
| Mechanics | Almost no grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. | Few grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. | Some grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. | Many grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. |
Additional Comments:
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Teacher Resource 7.6
Bibliography: Learning about Careers
The following sources were used in the preparation of this lesson and may be useful for your reference or as classroom resources. We check and update the URLs annually to ensure that they continue to be useful.
Lapan, Richard T. Career Development Across the K-16 Years. Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association, 2004.
Online
Cooper, Theresa London. “How Can Guest Speakers Support Student Learning in Your Classroom or School?” Teachers Network, http://www.teachersnetwork.org/NTNY/nychelp/Professional_Development/guests.htm (accessed July 11, 2013).
Dunlap, Joni. “Preparing for Guest Speakers.” Thoughts on Teaching, http://thoughtsonteaching-jdunlap.blogspot.com/2007/05/preparing-for-guest-speakers.html (accessed July 11, 2013).
“Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/OCO/ (accessed July 11, 2013).
O*Net OnLine, http://online.onetcenter.org/ (accessed July 11, 2013).
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