Transitions and Careers CoursesIntroduction to the CoursesThere are three levels of transitions and careers courses: introductory (middle school), intermediate (ninth grade), and advanced (junior or senior). The courses are designed by combining various combinations of three sets of standards: Build Relationships, Manage Personal Transitions, and Design a Career Blueprint. One of the major concerns among educators and legislators is the dropout rate and the number of students not academically prepared for continued education. This course is planned to serve at the transition points of student experience, from middle school to high school and from high school to opening doors of the future through post-secondary education, career and family life. In Family and Consumer Sciences it is our goal to build strong families and individuals who support their family members in the workplace. Many of the skills needed in both family and work are a focal point in this course. The significant shift in expectations at these transition points is why this course focuses on what it takes for students to be personally and academically successful as they prepare for postsecondary education, career and family. It is expected that all students will need to do some postsecondary education to be able to support families in the future. FCS is positioned to convey this message to every student we come in contact with. McRel researchers found four "Life Skills" that are essential knowledge across curriculum standards: thinking and reasoning, working with others, self-regulation, and life work (Vars and Beane, 2001). Elements of each of these life skills are integrated in the transitions and careers courses. It is the hope of education reformers that we find a way to get all students engaged in rigorous and challenging learning. Employers want individuals to have skills that family members need too. The challenge is to transfer these skills from one place to another. For example, when we learn about active listening in friendships we need to discuss active listening as used in the workplace. It seems we should make these transfers naturally but we do not. Learning is situated, learned in a specific context. Just like we expect students to bring their math or English skills into Family and Consumer Sciences we want students to take what they learn in Family and Consumer Sciences into the academics and the workplace. The inquiry units are intended to do this. We hope each entry event project motivates students to want to be part of the experience of learning in the family and in the workplace. If it does not we hope you can redesign or create another inquiry that does this for your students. Inquiry UnitsThe teaching method used in designing the courses is inquiry units. This is a method advocated by the Ohio Resource Center, who reviewed the Family and Consumer Science standards and validated the academic content standards that can be reviewed in these course. You may recognize this method as related to authentic instruction, constructivism, project-learning, cooperative learning, and many other labels from education reform movements. You will notice in the inquiry units some common elements of all of these methods. Inquiry units are intended to help students do high quality work in small groups in order for them to construct their own meanings and understandings of the FCS standards. The goal in using the inquiry method is to help students become more self-regulated, motivated, life-long learners with high levels of achievement preparing them for post-secondary education and their future in families and the workplace. The projects are designed to be of interest and engage students in authentic, "real world" project assignments. There is no doubt this method will take high levels of support and energy to implement so that the outcomes meet the relationship, rigor, relevance criteria education reform movements are advocating. In the inquiry method implementation rigor, relevance and relationships are key elements. As noted earlier we think students should come to FCS with knowledge transferred from other academic areas. To our great frustration they often do not. Patience will be needed as you have to review and reinforce the academic learning they will need to proceed in inquiry units. They will need to use such skills as selecting reliable resources, conducting and reading research and summarizing from many sources, developing creative project outcomes, using technology, learning from their reading, math, and writing. Skills needed in families and the workplace that we often assume students should have but really are never taught in the academic areas are interpersonal skills, self-regulation and knowing how to learn, teamwork and conflict resolution, ill-structured or issues problem solving, goal setting, and self-efficacy (Carnevale and Desrochers, 2003). These are the skills that everyone needs and get little attention (except to expect them) in schools. These are the skills necessary to complete inquiry projects and are the content and sometimes method of the transitions and careers courses. As you approach each inquiry immerse yourself in the standards, benchmarks and descriptors the inquiry is intended to support. Go to sources of content you have been using and read new sources. There are limited websites recommended in each unit because URL's change so much over time we can not stay on top of them. Use internet search engines to find new reliable sources of information and have your school librarian help search for websites and resources to support you and your students for each unit. You may need to teach some mini-units or lessons with assessments to help student understand concepts and practice skills they have trouble teaching themselves and each other. In using an inquiry approach we are seeking the truth or knowledge by questioning. Students ask questions that are interesting and meaningful to them and their natural sense of investigation drives them to seek answers. Each inquiry begins with a critical question and a set of driving questions used to prompt and guide student's investigation. Each unit has an entry event or project that is intended to get students to ask questions, study and construct meaningful learning to produce the authentic project or entry event to show they learned. The entry event gets the students into the study to meet the standard established to be learned. Each project is designed to be authentic or something that might or needs to happen in real life. Projects are designed to use authentic audiences in some away. Expecting students to be accountable to a real audience, someone who will actually use their products encourages students to work harder for a higher quality outcome. Each project is driven by an assessment or rubric to set the parameters for the project. Use the rubrics to guide the project to help students ask questions, find truth and information to solve and guide individual, family and work life concerns and problems. As you work with the units you will be able to make adaptations to the projects and the assessment so that they work for you. Some but not all the inquiry units have been tried or piloted in various forms. The time frame is a suggestion. However, we do recognize classes of 30 students, monitoring and supporting 7-15 groups (2 per group or four per group) will be a challenge. Some of the inquires are set up so that groups of four divide into two groups of two to work and then check and review each others work. Getting students to work in groups and study on their own (without your whole group direct instruction) is no easy task. The interest in the inquiry unit may not carry through every day. You may need to call on students themselves or people in the community to help manage and excite the groups. Some of the inquiry units are set up to have outside consultants or experts coach the students and this will certainly help you. On the surface the inquiry units may look like independent study projects. This is only partly the intent. Working with a partner or in a group immediately reduces the independent work to interactive, collaborative study. While students are constructing their own knowledge there will be times when it appears all student are not progressing or understanding an important benchmark and descriptor around which the inquiry unit is designed. This is time to stop and have group instruction where some small group may be able to teach the other students in the room or where the teacher steps in and uses another instructional method to make sure all students develop the benchmark before proceeding with the project. These mini-lessons will be essential in some cases where students need assistance with the benchmark or some FCS process (time management, selecting reliable resources, etc.) or academic content skill (summarizing from various reading, analyzing data, etc.) they need to perform at a high level on their project. Classroom management around inquiry units is a challenge. Mergendoller and Thomas (2002) present management ideas in a readable research study around the experience of expert teacher as they implement inquiry units. The time it takes for a class to complete a rigorous unit will get shorter as inquiry unit and student self-management skill improves. Cooperative LearningCooperative learning is one of the most researched teaching methods recommended in effective teaching. Cooperative learning is not the same as small group work. Cooperative learning is a strategy that in its design encourages students to learn from and teach each other. Elements of positive interdependence and individual accountability get students to push to individually know all the information and to feel responsible for each other knowing the information. An essential part of cooperative learning success is to teach students interpersonal skills and how to work in groups or teams as they would in families and the workplace. After teaching the skill the teacher monitors and gives feedback and the student's process and continue to set goals to improve their group work and achievement. Process SkillsIn all FCS standards there are FCS process skills and academic content skills woven through the standards. The process skills are: (1) integrate life management skills, (2) think and reason (practical problem solving) critically, (3) develop leadership and advocacy, and (4) build interpersonal and collaborative skills. The academic content standards from language arts, social studies, math and science and at the appropriate grade level are identified in the standards that are being taught at the introductory, intermediate, and advanced level. These are standards being taught in your school at the designated levels and can be reviewed or incorporated in the FCS inquiry units. You will see the FCS process skills woven into the inquiry units. You may see many ways to integrate these skills not designated in the inquiry units and you are encouraged to facilitate this integration as much as possible. ResourcesCarnevale, A. P. and Desrochers, D.M. (2003). Standards for what? The economic roots of K16 reform. Educational Testing Services. Retrieved May 29, 2007, from http://www.transitionmathproject.org/assets/docs/resources/standards_for_what.pdf Mergendoller, J. and Thomas, J. (2002) Managing project based learning: Principles from the field. Retrieved April 20, 2007, from http://www.novelapproachpbl.com/PBLResearch.htm Vars, G.F. and Beane, J.A. (2000). Integrative curriculum in a standards-based world. ERIC Digest. Retrieved May 29, 2007, from http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-1/curriculum.html
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