Employability Skills Checklist

By Amber O’Casey

Curriculum Coordinator

CTE Curriculum Coordinator

Government & Public Administration

Law, Public Safety, Corrections & Security

 

Are you looking for ways to develop your students’ employability skills? Well, look no farther. The Perkins Collaborative Research Center has developed an employability skills checklist tool. This user-friendly assessment is customizable so you can tailor it to meet the needs of your classroom or your individual students. To create a checklist simply visit their website and follow the three-step instructions:

1.    Choose the type of checklist (teacher or student)

2.    Select all or some of the employability skills that you want to assess

3.    Click the create the checklist icon 

The result is a personalized employability skills assessment in the form of a .pdf file. The assessment may be used in many ways such as, inventorying the employability skills already present in your lessons or creating a customized rubric to strengthen specific skills for individual students. As a bonus the online master checklist provides general activity ideas for each employability skill. These can be used to develop specific skills in your students or to assess the skills that you are teaching during your favorite class activities. This tool is an efficient and effective way to make employability skills a clear and measurable aspect of your classroom at no cost. Enjoy!

SOURCE: http://cte.ed.gov/employabilityskills/index.php/developingskills/create_checklist (2014) 

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Instructional Strategies

by Mickey Wircenski 

CTE Project Director

 

In any class there are so many differences in the ways that learners take in information and process it. Students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) present unique differences in their ability to focus and process information. Their brain size is about three to four percent smaller compared to their age-mates without ADHD. However, the difference in brain size does not impact their intelligence. 

 

These learners have difficulty paying attention and controlling their emotions. Lack of focus sis one of the major obstacles they face in all aspects of their lives-academics, friendships, family connections and work related tasks. They are often hyperactive which means that they are “continually wired”. Additionally, recognizing cause and effect presents a challenge for these learners. They often miss the connection between an action and its consequences.

 

Instructional strategies which may help learners with ADHD in the classroom include the following:

• Reduce distractions-seat them near the front of the room, clear their desks of objects, and keep their desks away from high traffic areas.
• Give directions one step at a time.
• Allow frequent participation and, if possible, movement.
• Break down objectives and assignments into small segments.
• Use computer-based instruction; it will draw their attention.
• Help their disorganized minds become organized by using planners and directly teaching study skills.
• Stay calm, because they won’t. Their lack of self-control means as adults that we must have more control.
• Don’t engage in an argument when they are out of control.
• Supply accurate information to parents and counselors as to behaviors seen in the classroom.

SOURCE: Secrets of the Teenage Brain: Research-Based Strategies for Reaching and Teaching Today’s Adolescents. (2013). Sheryl Feinstein. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.