Explore College, Career and Life Options with Learners

Preparing learners for their next steps in life involves exposing them to a variety of options for life after high school and this can begin with young learners. Through exploring and collaborating with a variety of different career and life options over time, learners are better able to understand how their strengths can support them in preparing for next steps in life. This can include reading about different career options, inviting professionals to come into the classroom, creating simulation or collaborative activities and projects that involve different careers, exploring career options online and more. It can range from learners exploring independently to learners actually collaborating with different professionals through interviews, shadow opportunities and even internships or collaborative projects.

Bright Spots

Gain inspiration from authentic examples of this strategy shared by teachers who have used them with their learners.

Creating your own Bright Spots? Let’s get them out into the world! Share yours here.

Pretend Play

Students at Duquesne City Public Schools have a space for K-2 learners to immerse themselves in the world of work by exploring career options and using pretend play to experience different career and life options for the future.

World of Work

Students at Cajon Valley Union School District use the World of Work curriculum and program to help them explore different career and life options starting in Kindergarten. Career exploration is incorporated into the curriculum and students reflect on their strengths, using the RIASEC framework. These programs leverage Pathful, VitaNavis and Beable platforms.

Elementary Students Impact Local Businesses

Kim Cawkwell co-created a learning experience with students called Project Ideate. Her 4th-grade students partnered with local businesses to understand their challenges and design solutions to impact their local community. Groups of students planned a pitch to present to a variety of businesses, including the local water board, the Humane Society, and a preschool.

Through the design and launch of a website and videos for their business, they learned how to effectively communicate through various mediums to document and share their ideas. Students completed several types of self-assessments, curated their work and reflected on their learning connected to the desired learning goals to evaluate progress with their teachers and determine next steps. In addition to the standards, Sinqi, one of the students, told me, “I learned to keep persevering with your ideas and don’t give up on yourself.”

Interest Profiler

Using tools such as the O*Net Interest Profiler or the San Diego Workforce Partnership career and interest assessment can help learners self-reflect and discover different career options and help them determine the level of education needed for those different careers.

College Comparison Tool

Source: Oregon Goes to College

This tool is used by high school students in Oregon to compare different college campuses as each student explores the right fit for them personally.

Client Projects

Source: realworldlearning.org

The Real-World Learning initiative in Kansas City is supporting client projects where middle and high school learners connect with real businesses in the area and work with them on solving a real problem. As part of one of the projects, students in a middle school math class partnered with local businesses to analyze energy consumption trends over time and present findings through line graphs, highlighting the benefits of energy conservation.

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