Career Exploration
STANDARDS IN ALL DOMAINS OF LEARNING

What Are the Standards?

Discipline-Specific Domain Standards. These refer to the State academic content standards in English-Language Arts, Mathematics, History-Social Science, Science, and Visual and Performing Arts. In addition, each school district will have standards and graduation requirements that reflect the knowledge and skills it believes students should acquire and the values of the community. Authentic learning experiences often cover two or more content areas at the same time.

Technical Domain Standards. These refer to standards that connect to career themes, i.e. what students need to know in order to succeed in a particular field or career path. In California, we have the “Challenge” standards, posted on the Department of Education web site, in the areas of Agricultural Education, Business Education, Health Careers Education, Home Economics Education and Industrial and Technology Education. While these are not board approved standards, they have been developed by knowledgeable practitioners—informed by either direct industry experience or industry input—and provide guidance for curriculum development in those career areas.

Of course, the most “real world” career/technical standards are set by industry itself. The National Skill Standards Act, creating the National Skill Standards Board, was authorized in 1994, the same year as the National School to Work Opportunities Act, to encourage the development of standards that would prepare youth and adults for “high skill/high wage” careers. The NSSB web site has listings of hundreds of industry associations that set standards for their industries. See "Certifications and Apprenticeships", then "Skill Certification Organization Directory" and search by industry.

Cross-Cutting Functional Domain Standards. These are the competencies and foundation skills identified by employers, and codified in the SCANS Commission Report , as being those necessary for success in the workplace.

SCANS Competencies
  1. Resources: Indentifies, organizes, plans and allocates resources.
  2. Interpersonal: Works with others.
  3. Information: Acquires and uses information.
  4. Systems: Understands complex relationships.
  5. Technology: Works with a variety of technologies.

SCANS Foundation Skills

  1. Basic Skills: Reads, writes, performs arithmetic and mathematical operations, listens, and speaks.
  2. Thinking Skills: Thinks creatively, makes decisions, solves problems, visualizes, knows how to learn, and reasons.
  3. Personal Qualities: Displays responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, integrity and honesty.

In addition, the Coalition of Essential Schools has identified “Habits of Mind” necessary for effective learning. See pages 45 of CLC Toolkit for a rubric to assess these Habits of Mind.

Habits of Mind from the Coalition of Essential Schools

  1. Perspective: considers or addresses multiple perspectives; demonstrates understanding of subtleties and differences among perspectives.
  2. Evidence: organizes work in and understanding and compelling manner; shows clear understanding of issues and concepts; demonstrates ability to research key issues.
  3. Relevance: shows importance of key concepts in information to other larger or more specific topics; demonstrates personal understanding and meaning.
  4. Connection: links concepts and issues with those from other disciplines or subject matter; shows applicability to other research topics and disciplines.
  5. Supposition: speculates or imagines other issues relevant to this topic; responds to “what if” questions and changes of circumstance.

Life-Long Learning Domain Standards. This domain addresses students’ abilities to reflect on their experiences and assets, and to set and achieve personal and future career goals. These standards have been codified in the National Standards for School Counseling Programs, under Career Development and Personal Development. They reflect the SCANS recommendations and the content of the National Career Development Guidelines of the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC, 1989). They include the following:

Career Development
  • Standard A: Students will acquire the skills to investigate the world of work in relation to knowledge of self and to make informed career decisions.
  • Standard B: Students will employ strategies to achieve future career success and satisfaction.
  • Standard C: Students will understand the relationship among personal qualities, education and training, and the world of work.

Personal/Social Development
  • Standard A: Students will acquire the attitudes, knowledge, and interpersonal skills to help them understand and respect self and others. These include self-knowledge—identifying personal values, attitudes and beliefs and identifying personal skills and assets.
  • Standard B: Students will make decisions, set goals, and take necessary action to achieve goals.

In this domain, we ask students to reflect upon how their experiences connect with “who they are” and “where they want to go.” This may happen in the classroom, or with the support of school counselors – hopefully both! In this domain, we ask:
  • What aspects of the industry were most interesting?
  • What have you learned that you want to know more about?
  • How did your project reflect or contradict your values?
  • What did your interactions with team members and mentors teach you about yourself?
  • What talents and abilities have surfaced through your work?
  • What skills do you need to hone further?
  • How do you best make decisions and set goals?
  • What working environments were most comfortable?
  • What aspects of the project gave you the most pleasure?
  • What career areas merit further exploration?

Daniel Goleman, who coined the term “emotional intelligence”, in his book Working with Emotional Intelligence, cites five “emotional competencies” – all of which, in varying degrees, are necessary for success in the workplace. According to Goleman, these intelligences are hierarchical, with the first required before the second can be achieved, and so forth. Note that the first, and therefore, by definition, the most fundamental, is “self-awareness”, one of the key traits we are striving to build in students through authentic learning and career exploration activities. The competencies include:

  • Self-Awareness
  • Self-Regulation
  • Motivation
  • Empathy
  • Social Skills

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