Career Exploration Unit

Item description

This unit is designed for high school ELA students to explore various
careers options. The lesson and activities in this unit allow students
to identify their personality traits and skills; students will also
research and explore various career areas to determine which types of
jobs will be best for them. Activities include:

1)
Personality inventory – students identify personality traits that they
possess and provide examples of how they demonstrate those traits. This
activity is helpful for resume development.

2) Skills
inventory – students explore a range of job-specific skills; they will
record skills that they possess and provide examples. This can help
students identify skills that will help them in the workplace, even if
they lack paid work experience.

3) Matching skills and
personality traits with jobs – this activity combines the previous two
activities and gets students to think about how personality traits and
skills will combine to help people be successful in various jobs. After
completing this activity, students develop a career poster to showcase
the personality traits and skills that will be important for that job
(marking guide included).

4) Interview assignment –
students interview someone about their career. The class will
brainstorm questions as a group, then students select the questions that
they want to ask their interview subject.

5) Exploring
career fields – this activity is helpful if some students are having
difficulty identifying one specific career that they want to focus on.
Students can examine various fields such as architecture, arts/culture,
business, education, science/technology, and more. Students should
identify areas that would be a good fit for them, and areas that would
not be a good fit; this can help students to narrow down the types of
careers that they might pursue.

6) Working conditions – it
is helpful for students to explore the working conditions associated
with various jobs in order to determine if they job will suit their
expectations. Students examine areas such as work location, safety,
physical effects, mental effects, scheduling, time off, and more to
determine what types of jobs would be best for them.

7) Types of work – students explore different types of work since as contract work, temporary work, seasonal work, and more.

8)
Information about training – once students have identified careers that
they are interested in, they will conduct research to determine the
type of education and training that they will need in order to enter
that career. This activity provides a good opportunity to discuss
post-secondary education and get students thinking about how much
additional education they want to pursue after high school (if any).

9)
Careers and change – during this lesson, students explore types of jobs
that don’t exist anymore, as well as jobs that are likely to be popular
in the future. This promotes discussion about why it is important to
consider the demand for a particular job before pursuing it as a career.

10) Employment vs. entrepreneurship – students explore
the differences between working for someone else and being
self-employed. They consider factors such as scheduling, investment,
work/life separation, degree of freedom, and more.

11)
Career profile – as a culminating activity, students select one career
and develop a comprehensive profile of that career. The profile will
include information such as a job description, demand, salary, working
conditions, benefits, training, personal suitability for the career, and
more. As an extension activity, students can develop a writing piece
about their selected career. Writing piece assignment and marking guide
included.

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