This microcredential represents a counselor's ability to utilize effective strategies for career development program planning, organization, implementation, administration, and evaluation.
To earn this 0.5 credit microcredential, you will submit two types of evidence from the choices below and two written or video reflections to demonstrate your competency with career development planning and evaluation. Click Earn This Microcredential to learn more!
Counselors who use effective strategies for career development program planning do all of the following:
• Implement processes for identifying and using career, avocational, educational, occupational and labor market resources, technology, and information systems.
• Use strategies for facilitating student skill development for career, educational, and lifework planning and management.
• Implement approaches for conceptualizing the interrelationships among and between work, mental well-being, relationships, employability skills, and other life roles and factors.
Career literacy is the basic knowledge and skills that students need to navigate the future work environment. The process of planning for college and career readiness and developing career literacy can be accomplished by gathering information on student interests, identifying strengths, and helping students overcome barriers.
Career Readiness:Career readiness involves three major skill areas: core academic skills and the ability to apply those skills to concrete situations in order to function in the workplace and in routine daily activities; employability skills (such as critical thinking and responsibility) that are essential in any career area; and technical, job-specific skills related to a specific career pathway. These skills have been emphasized across numerous pieces of research and allow students to enter true career pathways that offer family-sustaining wages and opportunities for advancement.
Stackable Credential:According to the US Department of Labor, a “stackable credential” is part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time to build up an individual’s qualifications and help them to move along a career pathway or up a career ladder to different and potentially higher-paying jobs. There are many ways to stack a credential:
• Vertical stacking: This is the general way stacking is thought of, with one credential combined with another to progress toward a higher credential.
• Horizontal stacking: In this type of stacking, a student earns a variety of credentials in related fields that, when taken collectively, prepare them for a specific type of job.
• Value-added stacking: This pertains to adding an area of expertise to an existing degree in order to be better prepared for a specific type of job.
Certificates:Certificates are awarded upon the successful completion of a brief course of study, usually one year or less but at times longer, primarily in public or private two-year institutions of higher education, university extension programs or non-degree granting postsecondary institutions like area career and technical education schools. Upon completion of a course of study, a certificate does not require any further action to retain.
Certifications:Certifications indicate mastery of or competency in specific knowledge, skills, or processes that can be measured against a set of accepted standards. These are not tied to a specific educational program but are typically awarded through assessment and validation of skills in cooperation with a business, trade association, or other industry group. After attaining a certification, individuals often must meet ongoing requirements to maintain the currency of the certification.
License:License is legal permission, typically granted by a government agency, to allow an individual to perform certain regulated tasks or occupations. A license can be obtained by meeting certain requirements set forth by the licenser, usually by completing a course of education and/or assessments. Upon receipt of a license, ongoing requirements may be necessary to maintain the license.
Work-Based Learning:Work-based learning or WBL is career awareness and exploration, work experience, structured training, and/or mentoring at the work site. There are work-based learning activities appropriate for every grade level to support students in developing career awareness, exploring career options, developing appropriate workplace skills, and relating academic skills to real-world applications.
Apprenticeships:Apprenticeships offer students the combination of paid, on-the-job training and related classroom training in a specified career. Apprenticeship programs are registered with the United States Department of Labor and are designed to culminate in certified journeyman-level skills attainment and nationally recognized credentials.
Career Fair:Career Fair activities bring the workplace to the school. Employers representing various industry or career areas are invited to come to the schools where they set up booths or display various equipment or other career-related items for students to see. Students have the opportunity to visit different demonstrations, hear presentations and talk to industry representatives about various aspects of the represented occupation or industry.
Job Shadow:Job Shadow is a work site experience during which a student spends time, typically three to six hours, one-on-one with an employee observing daily activities and asking questions about the job and industry. Job shadowing is a career awareness and exploration activity that allows students to gather information on a wide variety of career possibilities. Such exploration activities help students make good career decisions and assist them in focusing their studies once a career interest is identified.
Student Internship:Student internship is an experience where students work for an employer for a specified period of time to learn about a particular industry or occupation. Internship programs extend formal classroom learning into the community.
Elementary Background Scenario:
Elementary School Counselor Mr. Jones creates a year-long career development program by scheduling Collaborative Classroom Instruction on career connections to school, employability skills students are learning now, and various interactive lessons with technology tools. After each lesson students complete an exit ticket.
Along with the classroom lessons, Mr. Jones also implements school-wide activities that are related to career development, including a Career Day where parents and community members present about their jobs.
Mr. Jones also takes the fifth- and sixth-grade students on jobs shadows with local businesses.
Secondary Background Scenario:
Junior High School Counselor Ms. Garcia and the counseling department meet to make a year-long plan for career exploration and literacy activities.
The team decides to have Collaborative Classroom Instruction using the Division of Workforce Services data to have students investigate occupations and complete a worksheet explaining the education, skills, and salary of three different occupations and how those careers connect to current/future coursework and skills learned in school. The students complete pre- and post-lesson surveys to gather data to direct further needs related to career literacy.
The counseling department also holds a school-wide Reality Town with a classroom discussion afterward to gather student experience feedback.
Submit either the lesson plan or the yearlong calendar plan as described below as evidence of your preparation and planning for this microcredential.
Using the Lesson Plan and Results Report template, which is included in the resources section of this microcredential, submit a lesson plan representing Collaborative Classroom Instruction that focuses on student skill development for career, educational, and lifework planning management and the interrelationship among work, mental well-being, relationships, employability skills and other life roles and factors.
Submit a yearlong calendar of career exploration and literacy instruction which includes Collaborative Classroom Instruction, College and Career Readiness individual/group meetings, school-wide activities etc. Include at least one lesson plan used in the Collaborative Classroom Instruction.
Submit either the student data or the classroom observation response as described below as evidence of your implementation of effective career development planning and evaluation.
Using the Lesson Plan and Results Report template, which is included in the resources section of this microcredential, submit data from the student pre- and post surveys given in conjunction with your Collaborative Classroom Instruction.
Be sure to follow your district or charter guidelines for protecting student privacy.
Have a colleague observe Collaborative Classroom Instruction that focuses on student skill development for career, educational, and lifework planning management and the interrelationship among work, mental well-being, relationships, employability skills and other life roles and factors.
Debrief with your colleague after the lesson and submit a one-page response about their observations of your connections to career literacy, your lesson strengths and areas for improvement, and their overall impression of the lesson.
Include a statement about what you might change in the future based on observation results.
Criterion 1: Preparation and Planning
Evidence demonstrates use of effective strategies for career development program planning, organization, administration, and evolution.
Criterion 2: Implementation
Evidence demonstrates use of strategies to facilitate student skill development for career, educational, and lifework planning and management and also demonstrates the use of approaches for conceptualizing the interrelations among and between work, mental well-being, relationships, employability skills, and other life roles and factors.
Based on data from students, discuss how your students benefit from your use of career development program planning, organization, implementation, administration, and evaluation.
Discuss how you plan to develop your use of career, avocational, educational, occupational, and labor market resources, technology, and information systems.
Reflection 1 Response describes the student benefits of using career development program planning, organization, implementation, administration, and evaluation using student data sources (pre-post survey, etc.).
Reflection 2 Response describes strategies the educator will use to develop use of career, avocational, educational, occupational, and labor market resources, technology, and information systems.
ASCA position statements describe the organization’s position on specific topics in education and define the role of the school counselor relative to those topics.
You may use the Lesson Plan and Results Report to submit your evidence of planning and implementation for this microcredential
These are the Utah Effective School Counselor Standards connected with this microcredential.
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Salt Lake City, UT 84111-3204
Phone: 801.538.7807