Essential Skills
The development of essential skills begin at birth and is continuous and cumulative, crossing students' age and developmental phases. They provide a strong foundation in the development of appropriate, supportive behaviors to contribute to success in school and throughout life. These skills allow students to effectively work in different environments and are foundational to academic achievement and successes after graduation. Essentail skills are the professional skills which support future employability. They include:
ESSK = Employabiliity Skills
When you look at data describing the skills employers are prioritizing beyond technical skills making their employees successful in their employability, they align! When we support the development of these essential skills in our day to day interactions with students, we set them up for future successes.
PROMISING PRACTICE RESOURCE CENTER:
The following resource contains links to support practitioners elementary through high school. It includes Academic Goal Forms, Owning My Future Lessons and Slide Deck, Career Panel Guidance, Resume Building, Student Led Conference Guidance, Essential Skills Rubrics and Lessons, Student Evidence Reflections Sheet, and Models of Promising Practices.
The Career Conversations starters and questions provide a guide for families, educators, and community members - any caring adult - to engage with learners in their journey to Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness (PWR). They were created by ASCA, the American School Counselors’ Association, and CDE, the Colorado Department of Education and are based on ecosystems theory, counseling theory and an extensive review of counseling and career counseling literature.
This video is one of many produced by Kevin Fleming demonstrating how important it is for our educational systems to develop our student's awareness of the essential/professional skills they will need to demonstrate to gainfully hold a job. Many of the careers students will enter have potentially not been created and will require them to use technology that has yet to be invented.
INCLUSIVE PRACTICES AT WORK
CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION
What is Career and Technical Education - 1 pager
Requirements for a Career and Technical Education Program Approval
Colorado has identified 17 career clusters which all careers may be categorized within. The central career cluster is PWR (postsecondary workforce readiness). It is essential to succeed in all careers.
Collaboration Document with allowable accommodations in CTE programs
This document is intended to be a collaborative document. It is completed by the CTE Instructor and the Special Education Instructor. It supports productive conversations to support inclusive practices while giving perspective to all stakeholders (instructors, administration, students, parents, et al.) what skills are necessary to be successful in CTE programs and appropriate accommodations. Collaboration of key players in developing appropriate opportunities is essential: Collaboration - Priorities and Stakeholders Infographic.
Accommodation and Modifications Guidance Document
This document is intended to be used as a guiding tool in the discussion of appropriate accommodations and where modifying curriculum affects the integrity of the curriculum and a student’s ability to receive an industry certification, articulated credit, etc.
Colorado Work-based Learning Continuum
Work-based learning has been divided into 3 categories. Learning About Work, Learning Through Work, and Learning At Work. This document lists the designations.
Alternative Cooperative Education - ACE CTE
ACE programming was developed to support students learning how to get a job, keep a job, and move up in a job. In addition, the curriculum recommendations supports students receiving credit for learning independent life skills, including: professional skills, how to buy a car, rent an apartment, understanding taxes, insurance, etc. This is a CTE program supported by the state of Colorado as it was initially developed to support the special populations demographic. The ACE Board also has created an informal website sharing curriculum developed by teachers.
CTE, DVR, and SpEd - Where we can work together INFOGRAPHIC
UNPAID WORK-BASED LEARNING
Students may have Unpaid Work-Based Learning (WBL) experiences during their high school career, but the following guidelines must be followed:
Information and guidelines for unpaid work experiences
Checklist for Unpaid Work experiences
Sample of an Unpaid Work agreement
EVALUATION TOOLS
Student driven evaluation processes support students learning workplace behavior expectations.
This form may be completed by the student, then the supervisor should provide feedback on the student’s self-evaluation.
This form is intended to be completed following a work session by the student, guided with feedback from the supervisor.
CAREER ASSESSMENT:
PRE-CAREER ASSESSMENTS
Employability Skills Checklist (multi-year)
Strengths Based Interview (parents)(Spanish Version)
Developed by Vocational Rehabilitation, this site contains a plentitude of activities to support career exploration.
CAREER ASSESSMENT:
CAREER INTERESTS & APTITUDES
My Colorado Journey connects job seekers and students to careers, education planning and support resources through a guided process that drives action and goal completion.
ONET is informed by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. In addition to career and interest profilers, it contains detailed information about 1,000s of jobs.
Personality Sorters
Explore Work – Find My Talents
Developed by Vocational Rehabilitation, this site contains a plentitude of activities to support career exploration.
Bureau Labor Statistics Assessments & Activities
Career Development Checklist (turn into an interview)
123 Career Test Career Aptitude and Work Values
Informational Interview Template
CAREER ASSESSMENT:
CAREER PREP AND READINESS
Explore Work – WorkPlace Readiness Module,School Beyond High School, and Work Experience modules
Developed by Vocational Rehabilitation, this site contains a plentitude of activities to support career exploration.
POSTSECONDARY WORKFORCE READINESS
Promising Practices to support PWR - Postsecondary Workforce Readiness
This section of the CDE website has a multitude of examples and resources to support PWR - Postsecondary Workforce Readiness. Many of these practices are excellent in supporting transition and ICAP.
Postsecondary Planning Sheet- 1 pager
How to have a Meaningful Career Conversation with students
When students engage in Meaningful Career Conversations, they begin to understand how their unique aptitudes, skills, talents, self-identity, and values influence the decision-making process for life-long learning.
A student can use this form to guide their thought process in identifying their priorities, barriers, and goals and develop actionables to move forward in their postsecondary planning.
Train your staff on how to have a Meaningful Career Conversation
Education staff how to have effective Meaningful Career Conversations with students allows for students to be empowered with understanding their aptitudes and interests and learning about careers. This question based approach keeps our own biases and opinions out of career guidance and supports students in learning about careers with an open-minded approach.
LEARNING ABOUT WORK
This YouTube channel contains many 2-3 minute videos discussing a variety of careers.
This YouTube channel contains many 1-10 minute videos discussing a variety of careers, as well as the professional skills needed to keep a job.
This YouTube channel contains many 2-3 minute videos discussing a variety of careers.
50 Videos for Career Path Explorations KQED
This article shares multiple videos funded by PBS to support learning about a variety of careers.
The #EVERYONEHASASTORY podcast features conversations with various career representatives about their journey from student to their current positions. During each episode you will hear from career insiders on how they navigated their path to their current job, insights on their experience, challenges they overcame and lessons they learned.
FINANCIAL LITERACY
Helpful Financial Literacy Tools to aid students in understanding the importance of earning money to support the the lifestyle they want:
JumpStart Financial Smarts for Students