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High School
Employability Skills Experience
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Experiences allow you to explore a career field you’re curious about while mastering competencies for school credit. Through experiential learning, you will learn skills and apply them to tasks you would complete as part of a career rather than completing traditional assessments like essays or tests. During your Experience, you’ll work with a professional in the field to support your learning whom we call a “mentor.” You’ll earn a badge for your accomplishments to share on social media and higher education platforms, or with colleges, potential employers, peers, and colleagues to display your qualifications.
Here’s how Experiences work:
- Each competency you work on is addressed through a separate deliverable predetermined by you and your instructor.
- Guided learning for each module consists of research and/or work with a professional in the field. Your instructor will coach you through this process.
- Each module culminates in a final demonstration of understanding, which includes a deliverable and a discussion-based assessment with your instructor.
- Here’s an example:
Let’s say you’re curious about a career in healthcare. You decide you’d like to learn about this career area, make a professional connection, earn a badge, and meet competencies for your 9th-grade English requirement. While enrolled in English 1 Experiences, you conduct research to better understand language and structure in writing. Then you may work with an Occupational Therapist to help apply your writing skills to the creation of an informational video about adaptive equipment for patients. The video aims to advise family members of patients regarding the use of accommodations and equipment to help patients perform daily tasks. Now you’ve earned the Language and Structure in Writing competency! This is just one example of the many ways Experiences can bridge competencies to careers.
Obtaining a Mentor: Prior to enrollment, please have an idea for a mentor in mind. We have partnered with hundreds of mentors you can work with during your Experience, who you can find in our Career Mentor Catalog here. Or, you may consult with our counseling department by emailing [email protected] for help in identifying one.
*A parent/guardian permission form and background check of the mentor are both required to work with mentors without parental supervision.
Competencies
Workplace Expectations and Regulations
Students will demonstrate an understanding of workplace expectations and regulations by describing the shared professional expectations for a workplace and explaining the safety regulations of a workplace.
Workplace Communication
Students will demonstrate an understanding of workplace communication by explaining the fundamentals of verbal and written communication in the workplace, explaining listening skills in the workplace, and describing techniques for giving and receiving feedback in the workplace.
Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace
Students will demonstrate an understanding of interpersonal skills in the workplace by describing conflict management in the workplace, explaining negotiation techniques in the workplace, and explaining the benefits of emotional intelligence in the workplace.
Teamwork in the Workplace
Students will demonstrate an understanding of teamwork in the workplace by explaining interdependence in the workplace, describing a professional growth mindset, and explaining professional reliability.
Goal-Setting and Self-Direction in the Workplace
Students will demonstrate an understanding of goal-setting and self-direction in the workplace by describing the process of setting goals within the workplace and explaining the self-direction skills needed to achieve a goal within the workplace.
Creative Problem Solving
Students will demonstrate an understanding of creative problem solving by explaining the steps to solving a workplace problem and explaining the decision-making process.
Customer Service
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the effective customer service utilized in a career by explaining the skills of using career-field knowledge and empathy to help customers and the techniques of conflict resolution.
