Lesson Plan

Rationale

Technological advances play an important role in shaping the job market. While technology has made some careers obsolete and altered others, it has also created the opportunity for the emergence of new careers. According to Thomas Frey, 60 % of the best jobs in the next 10 years haven't been invented yet. In this sense, some jobs are literally "dream jobs" — they’ve been dreamed of and don’t even exist yet. The United States Department of Labor cautions that 65% of today's grade school kids will end up in jobs that haven't been invented yet.

Accordingly, it is very important that students are made aware of the rapidly changing career landscape and the importance of building skills and competencies such as adaptability, flexibility, problem-solving, growth mindset and life-long learning. This lesson will allow students to explore some of the new and emerging careers and figure out which of these careers of the future or "dream jobs" might be a good fit for them.

Standards

The lesson addresses the following standards:

• Common Core: Preparing Students for College, Career, and Citizenship

• NCTE/IRA: National Standards for the English Language Arts

• CTE Framework: Career Technical Education Framework for California Public Schools G 7-12

Reading Standards for Informational Text

• Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment.

• Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection and research

• Integrate visual information (e,g, charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

• Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

Writing Standards

• Write informative/explanatory texts, including career development documents, to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content

• Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting, graphics, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension

• Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic

• Use technology including the internet to produce and publish writing and present the relationship between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

Speaking and Listening Standards

• Present claims and findings emphasizing salient points in a focused manner with relevant evidence, sound valid reasoning, and well chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation

• Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentation to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence and add interest.

Career Planning Management Standards

• Identify personal interests, aptitudes, information and skills necessary for informed career decision making

• Evaluate personal character traits such as trust, respect and responsibility and understand the impact they can have on career success

• Integrate changing employment trends, societal needs, economic conditions.

Lesson's Objective

This lesson aims at:

• introducing career exploration and decision-making process to student by guiding them to discuss how we figure out what career to pursue and brainstorm the factors that contribute to deciding on a career,

• analyzing occupation documents and other types of text to glean information about interest, skills, values, and personality of potential candidates and future careers,

• building a career test using uquiz [free version]

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• develop information literacy by learning the elements that make up occupation profiles,

• access prior knowledge by discussing career decision making,

• identify factors that influence/contribute to career choice (skills, interests, values, preferences, personality, job market),

• interpret occupation profile and consider essential factors to determine career fit,

• practice research skills by investigating careers using occupation documents and other types of text,

• apply pre-writing strategies by generating ideas and organizing their research information,

• apply appropriate writing and design styles to create a career test, and

• present to the group their findings emphasizing salient points in a focused and coherent manner.

Lesson Material & Resources

Technology

• Computers with Internet access

• Overhead projector

• uquiz web tool to create a future career test

Printouts

• Occupation documents (resume, job announcements/postings, newspaper articles/headlines, magazine covers, career profiles, etc.) [PRINT]

• Assessment Rubric [Print]

• Answer Checklist [Print]

Assessment Strategy & Tools

Informal Assessment

Observe and guide students during in-class research, writing, and publishing exercises.

Formal Assessment

Students will be assessed on their:

1. Understanding of assigned careers

• do the answers and image choices to the career test questions contain evidence that students understood job description, requirements, qualification, and tasks?

2. Skill level at creating career test

• Originality

• content relevance

• use of graphic tools

3. Presentation skills

4. Team work and collaboration

The following rubric can be used for student assessment. It can also be used for students self assessment and/or peer assessment.

Reflection

Invite students to share their reflection on the project in a class discussion. The following questions can be used to guide the discussion:

1. What did you learn from this lesson?

2. What did you find most enjoyable about exploring careers of the future?

3. What did you especially enjoy about working with an infographic?

4. Did researching occupations of the future or learning about your classmates’ infographics pique your interest in a career you had not considered before?

5. What was the most surprising thing you learned about one of the occupations that were discussed?

6. Name something we didn’t cover in class that you wish we had covered.

Instructional Plan