Chapter 9 Flashcards
Step 1: Define the target population and its characteristics
example:
Midtown High School has 673 students who are fairly evenly divided over the four years (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). They come from families in a small city and areas as far as 10 miles from the city. The student body is 61% male and 39% female; 70% are Caucasian, 14% African American, and 16% Hispanic. Most students come from middle-income families in which wage earners work in the area’s tourist industry, or are retail merchants, or work as assembly workers in the local factories. In the past, no attention has been given to teaching students about planning for future jobs.
Step two: determine the needs of the population
(students in highschool are unaware of the paths and resources needed to get to a specific career)
If the target population consists of high school students, it is possible to infer from their age and stage in career planning that they have certain needs, such as deciding whether to attend a vocational-technical school, attend a university, or go directly to work. It is also safe to assume that they need assistance in selecting the occupation(s) they plan to enter. But, there may be other needs that cannot be identified by age or life stage alone—such as a need to have more information about the community colleges in the area—if needs are not assessed in a more formal way.
example:
Almost no students realize that there have been many changes in the past few years that will make their approach to career planning quite different from that of their parents. Students have no knowledge of how occupations are organized or how their work tasks vary. Few students can describe their interests or their best abilities, and those who can do not know how these may relate to their future work. Many students do not understand that different jobs require different amounts of education, and they cannot define the different paths of education (i.e., vocational-technical school, two-year college, university, apprenticeship, military service, etc.) that lead to work.
The identified needs of the target population become the basis for writing measurable objectives.
Step three: write measurable objectives to meet needs
By the end of the second year of high school, students will be able to:
Describe changes in the U.S. workplace that will affect their own career planning.
State at least two areas of interest, using either Holland (1997) clusters or career areas on the World-of-Work Map (ACT, 2000) for future work.
Describe the courses or curricula available in their high schools to help prepare them for these areas of work.
Describe different paths of education or training that they might pursue after high school related to these areas of work.
Step Four: Determine How to deliver the career planning services
In this step, the goal is to provide as rich an array of services to as many people as possible in the most cost-effective way
Much of the content could be provided in the classroom by training teachers to include some of the topics in their curriculum or through a well-planned and staffed career center. Alternatively, a career planning course may be offered to students during designated class periods or through homeroom or advisement periods. This curriculum may be developed locally, or the site might use a curricular package such as Direct Your Future (Harris-Bowlsbey, 2010b). Individual interviews with counselors could be offered to students who need individualized help.
Step five: Determine the content of the program
The content of the program is determined by its objectives, so it is necessary to look at each objective and imagine different ways it could be addressed. Here is one example for each of the populations.
Objective: Describe changes in the U.S. workplace that affect personal career planning.
Methods of meeting objective: Ask representatives from companies or government organizations to describe these changes in a scheduled meeting; ask students to read a book, use Web sites, or read several articles on this topic. Hold a group discussion after use of any of these methods of providing the basic information.
