Career Field Research Project
Overview
Middle and High School educators across Lebanon County, Pennsylvania developed lesson plans to integrate the Pennsylvania Career Education and Work Standards with the content they teach. This work was made possible through a partnership between the South Central PA Workforce Investment Board (SCPa Works) and Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 (IU13) and was funded by a Teacher in the Workplace Grant Award from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. This lesson plan was developed by one of the talented educators who participated in this project during the 2019-2020 school year.
Title of Lesson: Career Field Research Project
Course Name: STEMinar
Grade Level: 11-12
Author’s Name: Aaron Campbell
Author’s School District: Palmyra Area School District
| PA Academic Standards for Technology and Engineering | |
| 3.4.12.D2 - Verify that engineering design is influenced by personal characteristics, such as creativity, resourcefulness, and the ability to visualize and think abstractly | |
| PA Academic Standards for Career Education and Work | |
13.1 Career Awareness and Preparation 13.1.11.A. Relate careers to individual interests, abilities, and aptitudes. 13.1.11.B. Analyze career options based on personal interests, abilities, aptitudes, achievements and goals. | |
| Learning Objectives | |
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| Conceptual Background | |
| The goal of the lesson is to have students who are nearing graduation begin to think critically about what their own future may hold. In selecting a project, the goal is to have the student perform some task related to that field to add some authenticity rather than simply complete a research paper. Where at all possible students should seek out guidance from representatives in that chosen field to help them construct as realistic a project as possible. A sample idea might be a prospective automotive engineering student building a functioning mouse trap car with a gearbox or transmission (longer project) or a future teaching student designing a lesson to give to their classmates in a mock setting. | |
| Instructional Procedure | |
| Pacing | Instructional Procedure |
| Opening 5min | Advise students that they will be designing their own project based on their interests and inclination. Explain the project concept described above (conceptual background) |
| Research 15 min | Students should spend some time determining their chosen field. They should consult with instructor for approval (soundcloud rapper may be interesting, but not necessarily practical per instructor) |
| Brainstorming 15 | Students identify possible avenues that their project might take; at least 2-4 ideas |
| Chose 15 min | Students evaluate their ideas and select a project to implement |
| Develop - Homework (time varies) | Students should work at their own pace developing their project, posters and poster board not needed. The goal here is not presenting their idea to others, but exploring it for themselves and reporting their findings, experiences, and reflections back to their instructor. |
| Formative Assessment | |
Because of the wide range of potential projects a comprehensive rubric for assessment will have to be developed by the instructor with some student input of learning goals. However some basic measures of success include:
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| Materials Needed | |
| Beyond internet research tools the materials needed vary widely, will be determined by the chosen career field, and may need to be co-created or created by the student. | |
| References | |