Title of the Unit:
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Employability Skills
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Level:
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Post-Secondary
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Curriculum Area:
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Employment
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Time Frame:
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3 week
pre-employment
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Developed By:
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Tammy Jinkerson,
PME 832
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Time Frame:
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8 week paid experiential
learning experience
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Stage 1- Desired
Results
|
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Established
Goals:
·
Students will understand the factors that
contribute to workplace success.
·
Students will have concrete strategies to
increase employability and avoid pitfalls.
·
Students will have an opportunity to
experience a “real world” work placement.
·
Students will reflect upon their experiences
to promote metacognition, skills awareness and self-esteem.
|
|
Understandings:
Students will
understand that…
·
There are 11 Essential Workplace Skills .
·
The 11 Essential Workplace Skills are
connected to their own personal thoughts, feelings and actions.
·
Real employers expect value for money,
including essential skills.
·
The Essential Workplace Skills, employee
thoughts, feelings and actions impact on employers’ decisions to hire and
retain employees.
·
Successful short-term workplace experiences
will lead to longer term options and benefits for students.
|
Essential
Questions:
·
What are the 11 Essential Workplace Skills?
·
Which Essential Workplace Skills do I
currently that will contribute to my success?
·
Which Essential Skills do I lack or need to
improve in order to be more successful in my work life?
·
How are the Essential Workplace Skills used in
“real world” work situations?
·
What can I accomplish in a work placement that
will help me with my work/career path?
|
Skills:
|
|
Students will know…
Essential Workplace
Skills
·
Fundamental Skills
1.
Communicate
2.
Manage Information
3.
Use Numbers
4.
Think and Solve Problems
·
Personal Management Skills
5.
Positive Attitudes and Behaviours
6.
Responsibility
7.
Adaptability
8.
Life Long Learning
·
Teamwork
9.
Working with Others
10.
Participate in Projects and Tasks
Employment Safety
Standards
·
WHMIS Training
·
Worker Safety in 4 Steps
·
Employment Standards Training
Inquiry, Critical
Thinking and Experiential Learning in “Real World” of Work
|
Students will be
able to….
·
Research, present and peer evaluate
presentations about each of the Essential Workplace Skills
·
Achieve workplace safety skills certification
·
Reflect on learning in an ongoing learning
journal
·
Support other students in their development by
providing peer feedback
·
Practise Essential Workplace Skills in a “real
world” context
·
Determine similarities, differences, dilemmas
and solutions between theoretical and practical applications of the 11
Essential Workplace Skills
|
Stage 2-
Assessment Evidence
|
|
Performance
Tasks:
·
Group presentations
·
Safety certifications
·
Kahoot quizzes on Employment Standards
·
Participation in tours of local business
·
Attendance at guest speaker days
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Other
Evidence:
·
Weekly meetings with the group during work
placement phase.
·
Contributions to other’s learning
journals.
·
Employer completed feedback sessions, with
employee and counsellor present.
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Stage 3-
Learning Plan
|
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Learning
Activities:
Essential Workplace
Skills
·
Collaborate in small groups to select and
research one of the 10 topics in Essential Workplace Skills.
·
Create Inquiry-based questions about the
chosen skills and research the answers to the key questions of the topic.
·
Present the key information on a chosen the
topic in a group format.
·
Practice giving and receiving of feedback with
peers.
·
Upon completion, students will have a complete
manual to serve as a employment tool kit for use on future placement.
Workplace Safety
·
Complete certification requirements for WHMIS.
·
Complete certification requirement for “Worker
Safety in 4 Steps”.
Employment Standards
·
Watch and discuss “Know Your Rights” video
from the Ministry of Labour.
·
Students engage in gamification by using the
Kahoot game created for testing knowledge about Employment Standards.
Experiential
Learning Placement
·
Select and secure (with the help of program
staff) work placements in a local, standard for profit or not for profit
business.
·
Co-create, with program staff, a training plan
that is based on what would be needed to be competitive in that job.
·
Follow the training plan with a workplace
mentor to demonstrate the skills related to the job.
·
Demonstrate the Essential Workplace skills
learned in class to ensure success in tasks and relationships on the
job.
Metacognition and
Reflection
1.
Maintain a online Seesaw Learning Journal and
make weekly contributions that showcase the evidence of job-related skills
and soft-skills.
2.
Students will participate in a networked
learning community by making regular contributions to other student’s online
learning journals, providing support, encouragement and objective
inquiry.
3.
When issues arise, the network of supporters
can contribute suggestions and reflect on Essential Workplace skills to
support the problem-solving process.
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Resources
|
|
·
Boardroom booking for 3 weeks for
pre-employment sessions
·
Audio-visual equipment for student
presentations
·
Resource Centre computers for researching
topics
·
3 local businesses who are willing to give a
tour with discussion
·
3 local employers who are willing to speak to
their expectations of employees
·
Student phones that will run Seesaw app (or
Ipads from Resource Centre loaned)
·
Bus Transportation passes for students to get
to work
·
Employers who are willing to host paid
employment placements
·
WSIB coverage for students during work
placement
·
Tokens for safety training modules
·
Photocopier for presentation materials
·
Refreshments for 3 week in-class portion
·
Office and presentation supplies
|
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CURRICULUM ALIGNMENT:
 Stage 1: |
 Stage 2: |
Stage 3:
|
If the desired result is for learners to…
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Then you need evidence of the students’ ability to…
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Then the learning activities need to….
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Understand that…
|
||
Essential Workplace skills are
Big Ideas that matter in real workplaces
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Know and
use Essential Workplace Skills in peer group and on the job.
|
Teach Essential
Workplace
Skills and carry this
theme throughout the unit.
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Workplace injury happens more in youth than any other age
category and that knowing your rights and responsibilities will prevent
injury on the job.
Know their rights within paid
employment situations.
|
Ask safety related
questions. Be confident in right to
refuse unsafe work. Know the symbols
and safety practices used in the workplace to prevent injury.
Understand the role of the Ministry of Labour and the
resources the available to understand what rights and responsibilities are
under the employment standards act.
|
Include pre-employment safety
training (WHMIS and Worker Safety in 4 Steps modules) about worker rights and
on the job orientation to safety.
Pose typically dilemmas
encountered in the workplace and have students use the available resources
from to find answers.
|
Active participation in a
experiential learning job placement that mirrors the “real world” work in terms of expected employment
skills and relationships.
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Successful participate in
on-the-job training situations and use the supports available through the
program to troubleshoot any issues that may arise. To have the training result in being
competitive in the job to lead to a job offer or significantly improved
employability as a result of participation.
|
Be based in “real world”
competitive employment situations and have employers put the same
expectations on the student as he or she would on other workers.
|
To become aware of thoughts,
feeling and behaviours have changed as a result of the program experience.
To be aware of growth and the
need for life long learning.
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Reflection on learning.
Use the reflection to point to
a future path for employment next steps.
|
Be connected beyond one’s own
self.
Be ongoing and reflective not
only of evidence of skills learned but alignment to the big ideas of
employability.
|
And thoughtfully consider the questions….
What are my strengths and areas
for development in employability skills?
What do employers want and need
from their employees?
What are my rights as an
employee?
How do I remain safe at work?
How do
I navigate workplace relationships so as to create more opportunities for my
future?
How do
I create and benefit from a supportive network within the group?
|
Then, the tasks to be assessed need to include things like…..
Self-assessment of strengths
and areas for growth.
Track learning and growth.
Experience in a paid “real world”
job experience in which I am held accountable for my actions.
Mutual support network.
Learning directly from
employers about their wants, needs and what they consider to be a worker who
is “competitive” for employment in the industry.
|
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Connected
Learning
Culminating
Task
By Tammy Jinkerson
An assignment submitted to the Faculty of Education
In conformity with the requirements for
PME 832
Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada
March 9, 2018
According to the Connected Learning Alliance web site, the pedagogy of
connected learning is centred around the idea of a thriving ecosystem that
links the inner learner to the world outer world through interest, caring
adults, peer culture, friends, academic achievement and career success (www.clalliance.org). As the “caring adult” charged with the
responsibility of supporting achievement and career success, I set out to
create a unit based on solid connected learning pedagogy that engages students
with content, technology and experiences that are genuinely interesting and
fun, while creating a community of friends that support deep learning.
Typically, my students are early school leavers or students who do not
tend to succeed in traditional school settings and are seeking success,
instead, in the “real world”. The idea
of creating partnerships and experiencing the authentic, real world are central
to experiential learning and community-connected learning. As
pointed out in the Ontario Ministry of Education’s publication “Community
Connected Experiential Learning”, these experiences are important because they
help students to process learning and critical questions about the “what?”, “so
what?” and “now what?” of their learning experiences (9-11). Such connected experiences also help with “learning
transfer; that is, it helps students to see the connections between the course
content and its application in other contexts”, as well as having many “psycho-social
benefits for students, including increased self esteem and engagement in the
workplace or school, improved motivation and improved social and leadership
skills” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 6).
As Furco (2010) pointed out, experiential learning environments offer
benefits that classroom learning simply cannot; a set of “real-life issues” and
“the problem-solving (that) is not about pre-fabricated questions at the end of
a textbook chapter or hypothetical scenarios” but, rather an opportunity to
“study real problems, in real time, for real people” (231). With this in mind, I created my unit with a
significant experiential learning component. In this way, the lessons would not be
hypothetical to the students, but immediately useful, applicable and aligned
with real expectations of real employers.
My professional growth throughout the
PME832 program became evident to me as I began to re-structure my previous
format, from teacher-led sessions to student-driven workshops. By incorporating peer-led experiences and peer
determined content, I aligned my goals to that of Furco, 2010, who described
students in connected learning as “producers, rather than the recipients of
knowledge, active rather than passive learners, and providers rather than
recipients of assistance (230). Becoming
a producer of education connects to one of employability’s big ideas- that
transition from school to work involves accountability for one’s own actions, ownership
of one’s own learning and what results from these new thoughts and behaviours. Student-driven learning also helps to build the
“social capital” benefits of learning communities, as described by Lave and
Wenger (n.d.), that “leads to behavioural change- change that results in
greater knowledge sharing, which in turn positively influences business
performance”, which further supports “organizational effectiveness and
profitability”(www.infed.org). By making
the program of mutual benefit for students and their workplace mentors, I am
striving for the program sustainability that will allow me to continue to learn
from, and grow, this unit.
As
I reflected on the past success and challenges of similar programs, I realized
that past programs failed to continue the wonderful sense of community and
mutual support that had been created during the in-class component. It is ironic that this continued, without
being challenged, because the experiential learning component is the phase in
which students most need supportive communities, as they encounter
ill-structured problems and wrestle with complex issues. As I was learning about how networked
communities bridge the challenges of time and space, I began to look into the
Seesaw app, which is often used as an ongoing journal of learning. The function of learning reflection, alone,
is a good rationale for use of this technology but reflection without
connection can feel sometimes feel lonely.
I decided to use the journal feature, but added the twist of additional
features to better connect learners. By
networking the journals, I was able to achieve what was inconceivable
before: a network of learners using
reflection and group encouragement at the same time. By building in the expectation of journaling
and responding to other’s journals, the group will continue to support each
other and retain the social benefits of the community. In the same way that software offered a
solution for Lave and Wenger’s community of practice, Seesaw offers similar
social benefits in “practices and technologies (that) have revitalized the
educational terms, such as collaboration, sharing, dialogue, participation,
student-centred learning” (www.infed.org). The use of Seesaw also coincides with the learning
goals that Schwartz (n.d.) highlighted, including processing feedback from
others and evaluating one’s own performance, as well as reflective practice (7).
By using the TPACK
website, I was able to use the TPACK framework to help me find the “sweet spot”
in which content, technology and pedagogy knowledge were in balance for
connected learning (www.tpack.org). This shows growth in my approach to
connected learning because I typically focus most on content. Now, I am able to consider my content
knowledge and technology knowledge to empower a sense of community and learner
reflection, and further my planning to include my pedagogical knowledge for more
personally meaningful learning for my students.
I belong to an
association called College Sector Employment Services (CSES), a networked
community of providers of Employment Ontario programs and services. I plan to share my unit with the group in the
“resources” section of the website at www.cses.org
so that it can be immediately shared with my network of colleagues who share an
interest in quality experiential learning opportunities for students.
References
Connected
Learning Alliance. (n.d.). What is
connected learning? Connected Learning Alliance [website]. Retrieved from: https://clalliance.org/why-connected-learning/
Furco, A. (2010). The community as a resource for learning: An
analysis of academic service-learning in primary and secondary education. The
Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice, 227-249.
Koehler, M. (2012).
TPACK explained. The seven
components of TPACK. TPACK
[website]. Retrieved from: http://tpack.org.
Lave, J.
& Wenger, E. (n.d.). Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger and communities
of practice. Infed. [website]. Retrieved from: http://infed.org/mobi/jean-lave-etienne-wenger-and-communities-of-practice/
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016). Community-connected
experiential learning: Purpose, rationale, and considerations for
implementation. Community-Connected Experiential Learning: A Policy Framework for
Ontario Schools, Kindergarten to Grade 12, 4-20.
Schwartz, M. (2013). Experiential learning. The LTO Best Practices, 3, 1-20.
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