20.3 – Integrate Career Development Across Curriculum

Purpose & Context

Educators, as career development professionals (CDPs), translate career curriculum into age- and grade-appropriate lessons, activities, and discussions. As CDPs, educators may also work with others to develop cross-curriculum materials and strategies focused on integrating work, life, and learning competencies to support student success in the classroom and beyond.

Effective Performance

Competent career development professionals must be able to:

P1. Facilitate age- and grade-appropriate career curriculum, for example:
- Support early year career development, e.g. fostering creativity, curiosity, resilience, and autonomy; buildingpositive relationships within the community; exploring hopes and dreams
- Promote career awareness in elementary schools, e.g. exploring roles/opportunities in the community; developinga sense of personal skills/competence; facilitating opportunities to contribute at school, at home, and/or withinthe community
- Explore career possibilities in middle schools, e.g. providing opportunities to recognize skills, strengths, and
  interests, and develop new ones; expanding options/possibilities; developing transferrable skills
- Prepare for post-secondary studies and/or work search to support career aspirations, e.g. crafting plans to
  achieve academic, employment, and/or community engagement goals; cultivating a positive work attitude and ethic
- Support post-secondary success, e.g. facilitating school-to-work transitions; integrating academic courses with
  work opportunities (work-integrated learning/internships); providing career services and supports such as resume
  writing workshops, academic advising
P2. Identify opportunities to integrate career concepts across curriculum content areas:
- Identify outcomes across content areas in a specific grade level that align with building occupational and
  career awareness
- Identify career influencers who are connected to those content areas and/or working in a range of occupations
  related to those content areas
P3. Access a career development community of practice:
- Engage with members of the school and the broader community, e.g. share information, invite feedback, facilitate
  discussion
- Co-create plans of action
P4. Develop learning activities or resources which connect work, life, and learning. Examples include, but are not
limited to::
- Classroom discussions on career-related topics, e.g. labour market information, gig economy, globalization, work
  disruption
- Guest speakers, e.g. professionals sharing personal experience and career paths
- Field activities, e.g. worksite visits, on-site observation
- Experiential learning, e.g. volunteering, part-time work, community service, internships, classroom exercises
  that replicate real work tasks
- Research assignments, e.g. identifying occupations using knowledge covered in the classroom, relate content to
  occupation-specific tasks, identify educational requirements for selected occupations
- Career-related assignments, e.g. develop a business plan, market a product, prepare an environmental scan of
  occupations within a service or organization
- Career exploration games, e.g. board games, online simulations
- Career exploration diary, e.g. student records own experiences, career learnings, reflections, process of career
  planning
P5. Support a learner-centred approach. Examples may include:
- Infuse principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion
- Attend to accessibility considerations
- Apply principles of universal design for learning (UDL)
P6. Support the implementation of the career curriculum. Examples include:
- Liaise between staff and subject matter experts
- Deliver information sessions, as required
- Deliver training sessions, as required
P7. Evaluate impact on career awareness. Examples include:
- Conduct student awareness surveys
- Document frequency and breadth of student experiences
- Record numbers of students participating in career activities
P8. Revise promotion of career awareness across curriculum, as required

Knowledge & Understanding

Competent career development professionals must know and understand:

K1. Provincially prescribed curriculum components, e.g. document organization, curriculum outcomes, skills frameworks,
achievement indicators, assessment and evaluation
K2. Scaffolding of learning in outcome-based early years, K-12, and post-secondary programs of studies
K3. Experiential learning programs and opportunities, e.g. curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular
K4. Key career development concepts, e.g. labour market information, gig economy, globalization, work disruption
K5. Community resources
K6. Characteristics of students with exceptional needs
K7. Education system supports and resources available to students
K8. Cross-curriculum career awareness strategies

Contextual Variables

Competent career development professionals must be able to perform this competency in the following range of contexts:

Integrating career awareness across curriculum presents challenges and opportunities. Strategies should be developed at all program levels in collaboration with all staff.

Community engagement is critical for successful cross-curriculum initiatives.

Glossary & Key References

Terms

Industry-specific terms contained in the standard defined here, where applicable.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL): a framework offering insights into how humans learn and providing guidance for providing multiple means of engagement (why we learn), representation (what we learn), and action and expression (how we learn).

Work-integrated learning: a form of curricular experiential education that formally integrates a student’s academic studies with quality experiences within a workplace or practice setting (also known as “co-operative education”).

Information Sources and Resources for Consideration

CAST (n.d.). About universal design for learning. https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl

Comprehensive Guidance and Counselling Program: Supporting Student Success. 2007. Revised updated 2010. Nova Scotia. Department of Education. Student Services. ISBN: 1-55457-078-6

Standards of Practice for Guidance Counsellors, 2014 Department of Education Newfoundland and Labrador

Sultana, R. G. (2018). Enhancing the quality of career guidance in secondary schools: A handbook. University of Malta: Malta. ISBN 978-88-940328-0-2 accessed http://myfutureproject.eu/

Context Rating Scales

Criticality

Q: What is the consequence of a professional being unable to perform this skill according to the standard?

Minimal risk: SOMEWHAT CRITICAL

Frequency

Q: How frequent and under what conditions is this skill performed?

Circumstantially, e.g. per project, when a specific event arises

Level of Difficulty

Q: Under routine circumstances, how would you rate the level of difficulty in performing this skill?

Moderate difficulty or complexity

Time Required to Gain Proficiency

Q: What is the average length of time or number of repeated events that are minimally necessary for an individual to become proficient in performing the skill to the standard?

A career development professional requires a minimum of one year of experience as an educator and varied experiences in collaborating with families of students.

Autonomy

Practitioners typically perform this competency without supervision, and alone and/or as part of a team.

Automation

It is unlikely that this competency will automate.

Requisite Work Aids, Tools, Equipment or Materials

None