Transcript Slide 1

Career Assessment
for All Students
Governor’s Institute for
Career Education & Work
Pennsylvania College of Technology
Williamsport, PA
June 18, 2008
Career Assessment
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Career Development
Spiral of Growth Embedded in PA Career
Education & Work Academic Standards
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5.
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Career (and self) Awareness and Preparation
Career Acquisition (more than ‘getting a
job’)
Career Retention & Advancement
Entrepreneurship
Other Academic Standards + SCANS
21st Century Skills, Equipped for the Future
Learning Objectives
Participants will
 Gain understanding of reiterative career
development process in which all students should
engage;
 Identify essential framework for career assessment
 Learn how to triangulate information for validity
 Practice planning career assessment
 Begin to create a career assessment process for all
students in own schools
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Types of Assessment
 Transition Assessment
relates to all life roles and the
supports needed before, during, and after transition
to adult life; it serves as an umbrella for career and
vocational assessment and evaluation.
 Career Assessment
relates to life-long career
development, which affects life roles, and is ongoing
throughout one’s life.
 Vocational Assessment
and Evaluation relate to the
role of the potential worker (and employment).
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National Attention to Transition for All
Students
Freshman Transition Initiative:
 Replacing ‘no child left behind’ with ‘student
self-sufficiency’
 Promoting self-sufficiency in 8th & 9th grades
with a 10-year career and life plan
 http://www.freshmantransition.com
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Domains/Content of Transition Assessment
& Adulthood
Home and Family
Self
Determination
Physical and
Emotional
Health
7 M. E. & Patton, J. R. (1993). Life skills instruction for all students with special needs: A practical guide for integrating real-life
Cronin,
content into the curriculum. p 13. Austin TX: PRO-ED.
Domains/Content of Transition
Assessment & Adulthood
Employment and Education
Domain
[Careers]
Conducted within a
Career Development Context:
Knowing Where to Begin
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Career Assessment is
A process of gathering relevant information to
plan, evaluate, or make career decisions.
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Data (information) can be derived from a number of
sources over a period of time.
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It occurs within a career development context
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Transition and Career Assessment:
Where are we?
Are all of your students graduating?
 Are all of your students achieving
success post high school?
 Are all of your students satisfied with
their quality of life after high school?
 Are you satisfied with how students are
assessed?
You are not alone!
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Change the Proverbial Assessment
Cycle by Creating Systemic Change
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Return to
Alarmed
Neglect
Discovery
Disillusionment
Crisis
with Results
Activity
System Change is Needed:
Most students do not participate in career assessment
processes
 Schools do not have a systematic, responsive process
 Administrators are focused elsewhere
 Counselors have some training, but are too busy
(Hughes & Karp, 2004)
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Teachers do not have training (personal communications)
and are too busy
Families struggle to know what to do
Many youth are floundering and failing
Beginning to Create a Systemic Change for
Career Assessment of All Students
Ask specific questions several times a year and include
everyone:
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do we have plans for it? What are they?
how often will we assess?
what do we assess?
how will we assess? What will the students experience?
who is responsible and for what aspects of the process?
is it customized for the individual student?
do we have checkpoints and benchmarks for the on-going
process?
are we doing “whatever it takes” to assess?
Is the process accessible to all?
Ask ‘what is’ and ‘what’ before asking ‘how
to’
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Avoid planning around “instruments” we have
available or those which require minimal preparation
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Planning around instrumentation rather than
- “what” the person needs,
- what attributes they possess, and
- what ecologies they inhabit and seek and the
congruence between these leads to piecemeal
profiles and fragmented planning
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Answer the first three questions
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2.
3.
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Do we have plans for a systemic
career assessment process?
What are these plans?
How often will we assess for specific
career and/or transition planning?
Phases of Career Assessment = When
assessment occurs
1.
2.
3.
Assessment prior to planning
On-going assessment throughout planning,
*instruction, career development, employment, and
post-secondary preparation.
Assessment and review to identify what worked,
what didn’t, and what to do next.
* instruction includes all school curricula, extracurricular activities, community participation, etc.
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Career Development
“….is a lifelong process of developmental experiences
that focuses on seeking, obtaining and processing
information about self, occupational educational
alternatives [options] life styles, and role options.”
Hansen, 1976
“…is the process through which people come to
understand themselves as they relate to the world of
work and their role in it.” NOICC, 1992
Assessment occurs within this process.
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Career Development in Education
When provided in schools & integrated in learning
 Career awareness
 Career exploration
 Career preparation
 Career synthesis and assimilation
 Career advancement and change
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Not always linear, but mosaic within spheres
of change—a reiterative process
Assess within a Career Development
Context
Awareness
Growth,
Change &
Expansion
Assimilation
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Exploration
Preparation
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Do these phases/stages sound familiar?
Similar to the PA CEW Standards
 Was described earlier in the week
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Results in
 Success for students
 Productivity for employers
 Health for nations
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Advanced
Learning
Community
College
4 Year College/
University
High School
Career Cluster Selection,
Advanced Academic Skills
Related Work Experience
Middle School
Career Exploration
Academic Foundations
Job Shadowing & Mentoring
Elementary
School
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Career Awareness & Self-awareness
Professional
Technical
Entry
SCANS (Secretary’s Commission on
Achieving Necessary Skills)
The Secretary's Commission on Achieving
Necessary Skills (SCANS) identifies the level of
skills required to enter employment, including
 define the skills needed for employment;
 propose acceptable levels of proficiency;
 suggest effective ways to assess proficiency.
http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS/
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SCANS (Secretary’s Commission on
Achieving Necessary Skills)
 These
workplace essential skills and the associated
rating scales can be utilized to measure youth
progress, thereby holding the standard expectation
for youth with and without disabilities.
 Workplace Essential Skills are identified as
workplace competencies and foundations skills, also
referred to as “Workplace Know-How.”
Teaching the Scans Competencies:
http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS/teaching/
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Workplace Know-How:
The Foundation
Competence requires:
 Basic Skills: reading, writing, arithmetic and
mathematics, speaking and listening;
 Thinking Skills: thinking creatively, making decisions,
solving problems, seeing things in the mind’s eye, knowing
how to learn, and reasoning;
 Personal Qualities: individual responsibility, self-esteem,
sociability, self-management and integrity.
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Workplace Know-How:
SCANS Competencies
Effective workers can productively use:
 Resources: allocating time, money, materials, space,
staff;
 Interpersonal Skills: working on teams, teaching
others, serving customers, leading, negotiating, and
working well with people from culturally diverse
backgrounds;
 Information: acquiring and evaluating data, organizing
and maintaining files, interpreting and communicating,
and using computers to process information;
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Workplace Know-How:
SCANS Competencies
Effective workers can productively use:
 Systems: understanding social, organizational, and
technological systems, monitoring and correcting
performance, and designing or improving systems;
 Technology: selecting equipment and tools, applying
technology to specific tasks, and maintaining and
troubleshooting technologies.
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Assess within the demands of work
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Secretaries’ Commission on Achieving
Necessary Skills (www.dol.gov)
21st Century Skills
(www.21stcenturyskills.org)
Equipped for the Future (though for adult
education, relevant: www.ncsall.net)
Are They Really Ready to Work? (Workforce
Readiness Institute, www.conferenceboard.org
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Re-define Assessment
Reframe how we think:
 To assess means “to sit beside” (Latin)
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To assess means “to prize” (French)
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To assess means “to learn” (Latin)
Try to avoid mass assessment as much as
possible
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While Reframing—Think about Intelligence
Differently
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The ability to solve problems, or to create products,
that are valued within one or more cultural settings
(Gardner, 1985)
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Our intellectual abilities are inextricably bound to
the contexts in which we live—we cannot separate
them (Gardner, 1993)
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Successful intelligence is to “think well”
in 3 different ways (Sternberg, 1991)
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Triarchic and Successful Intelligence:
(this is intuitive to many)
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Analytical: Componential—information processing: metacomponents, performance components, knowledgeacquisition components
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Creative: Experiential—dealing with new tasks, automatic
information processing to solve problems
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Practical: Contextual—functioning to adapt to the external
world: adapting to, shaping, or selecting new environments
One way, analytical, may not be the most valued in real life.
Robert Sternberg, 1991
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How will you assess for these types of
intelligence?
Sternberg’s??
 Gardners’s??
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In classes?
 Outside of classes?
 Who can assist?
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Plan with your team.
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What is career assessment?
Someone from the audience??
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Three Levels of Assessment
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Screening and Needs Assessment
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Exploration
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Comprehensive Assessment (e.g., vocational
evaluation)
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Levels of assessment
Level One—Needs Assessment or Screening:
For everyone
The initial process designed to arrive at a decision
for providing additional services. This assessment
typically consists of interviews, limited questionnaires,
inventories), and reviewing background information.
If more information is needed or questions emerge,
Level Two should be initiated.
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Levels of assessment:
Level Two—Exploratory: For some
This intermediate process involves detailed review
of background information, in-depth vocational
interviewing and counseling, and/or additional
psychometrics or career exploration. It may also
include transferable skills analysis, job matching,
and labor market investigation, and/or community
mapping.
If more information is needed or questions emerge,
Level Three should be initiated.
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Levels of assessment:
Level Three—comprehensive career
assessment (or vocational evaluation): for
individuals facing the greatest transition, career,
and vocational challenges or barriers.
This process systematically uses real or simulated work as
the focal point for assessment and career exploration.
One purpose is to assist individuals in career and
vocational development. The profiler(or vocational
evaluator) synthesizes data from all team members,
including if necessary, medical, psychological, economic,
cultural, social and vocational information.
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Levels of Transition, Career & Vocational
Assessment
Level III
Level II
Level I
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Levels of Service
 Level III: comprehensive career
assessment/vocational evaluation.
 Level II: diagnostic and prognostic,
exploration, go onto next level if more
information is needed to make
decisions.
 Level I: make quick decisions;
minimal assessment required, go on to
next level if more information is
required.
Who Provides Three Levels of
Services?
Counselors
 Teachers, including CTE Instructors
 Community service providers
 Employers or service learning supervisors
 Work experience coordinators
 Vocational Evaluators or Assessment Specialists
 Transition coordinators (for students with
disabilities)
 Parents and family members
 Youth
 Others who have relevant experience, vested
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interest in the student, and have received some type of
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Which levels of career assessment do you
provide and to which students?
Work in your teams to answer
these two questions
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Framework for Transition and Career
Assessment
Examples of an Individual’s Attributes
Examples of Ecological Attributes
Interests
Level of Career Development
Level of Career Maturity
Temperaments
Skills
Preferences (Learning styles, etc.)
Needs
Strengths
Attitudes
Aptitudes
Values & Satisfiers
Environments
Circumstances
Relationships
Situations
Resources (including support
networks)
Individual + Ecology = Congruence
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Assess the individual
and all attributes
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Motivators
Interests
Values
Abilities and “can do’s”
Learning style preferences
Multiple intelligences
Worker traits and behaviors
Aptitudes
Potential barriers to
transition goals
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Goals
Strengths
Needs
Functional levels
Level of self-determination
Level of career
development & maturity
Self-concept & esteem
Assitive technology needs
Assess the individual’s ecologies
Present, Past, and Future
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Environments
Circumstances
Situations
Relationships
Personal Support Systems
Resources (vocational, community, financial,
governmental, educational, etc.)
Ecological Career Assessment
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Finances and/or means for living
Scholarships, loans, etc.
Transportation
Social Support Networks
Living situation
Advocate(s) & ‘Touchstone’
Employment
Healthcare
What process do you have in place
currently?
To assess the student’s attributes?
 To assess the student’s present and
future ecologies?
 To determine if assessment was useful
and generated needed information for
planning and decision making?
Who can provide this data?
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Triangulation of Methods and
Information
Current
Relevant
Valid
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Community Based
Vocational Assessment
Worker
Evaluator
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Employer/
Coworker
Universal Guidelines for Assessment
Principles of Vocational Evaluation:
1.
Use a variety of methods & techniques
2.
Triangulate findings
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Behavior observation & personal interaction are
essential to the process
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Process is on-going & developmental
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Is required to make decisions & plan
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Never stands alone—it is integral to larger service
systems or processes
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Universal Guidelines for Assessment
Principles of vocational evaluation:
7. Results must be used to have value for consumers
8. Requires collaboration & multiple sources of input
9. Must be current, valid, and relevant
10. Must be grounded in vocational & work contexts
11. Is a process, not a product
12. Is systematic and organized, but flexible
Position Paper of the Interdisciplinary Council on Vocational
Assessment and Evaluation: www.vecap.org
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What have we accomplished?
Did you
 Gain understanding of reiterative career
development process in which all students should
engage?
 Identify essential framework for career assessment?
 Learn how to triangulate information for validity?
 Practice planning career assessment?
 Begin to create a career assessment process for all
students in own schools?
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If you have questions:
Contact Pam Leconte,
[email protected] or 202-994-1534
 Go to www.sharedwork.org (ignore that
it is designed for students with
disabilities)
 Go to www.iel.org for Career Planning
Begins with Assessment, and other Career
Assessment resources
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Career Assessment for All Students
Thank you!
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