Lesson Plans for the Life Skills Curriculum:
This unit is designed to help students think about the future and where they will fit into it. It is very hard for them to plan a future without knowing where they are now.
First they need to know who they are and how important they already are.
Aim: How do I find out about myself?
Motivation: For me to know where I am going, I need to see where I have been.
Process:
Students will be writing an autobiography during the semester. The first stage of this autobiography is "Who am I?"
Some students are aware of who they are and can write easily about themselves. Some need more of a framework; a series of questions to answer. When they have answered the questions, they often have no idea what to do with the information. This site,
http://platinumrule.com, can analyze their answers and place them into a "personality profile" which would then categorize the type of personality and describe strengths and weaknesses. There are certain jobs and behavior within jobs that relate directly to each style.
This site, http://www.cba.bgsu.edu/class/webclass/nagye/career/process.html, starts the process going with a series of questions about the student, but then continues the process of what the student needs to learn about: himself and the possible career in order to find a good "match". There are different levels of the process starting with self-assessment; moving on to academic/career options, relevant/practical experience, job search preparation, and career change. There is a list of competencies -- skills which are transferable to any possible job. There are all sorts of skills that students might already have, yet not realize the importance of such as organization, communication, and interpersonal skills.