What Matters to Me?

What Matters to Me?

Self KnowledgeWhat Matters to Me?

CareerCollegeReadinessLessonPlans

What Matters to Me?

Self-knowledge

Grade Level 10

Overview

This lesson will have students become aware of their values as they relate to their personalities, work ethic, and personal motivations. Students will identify how their values impact their occupational choices.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

  • Describe how their values are an important part of determining what occupations would satisfy them and meet their needs.

Language Objectives

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

  • Verbally identify their threemost important values.
  • Verbally identify values that are important for specific occupations.

Standards Alignment

  • California Common Core State Standards: College & Career Readiness
    Anchor Standards:
  • RI. 1, 4; SL. 1; L. 1, 4, 6
  • California Career Technical Education Anchor Standards:
  • 2, 3
  • California Standards for Career Ready Practice:
  • 1, 2, 4
  • National Career Development Guidelines:
  • CM2
  • International Society for Technology in Education Standards:
  • 3
  • English Language Development Standards:
  • Part I: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11
  • Part II: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6

Materials

  1. Computer with Internet access for students
  2. Computer with Internet access and projection capability for instructor
  3. Projector and screen
  4. Instructor resource
  5. California CareerZone Account Setup Instructor Notes (p. 5)
  6. Handout
  7. California CareerZone Student Account Setup (p. 6)
  8. Online Resource
  9. Work Importance Profiler, California CareerZone

Academic Vocabulary

  • Achievement Work Value: involves the need to use your individual abilities and the need to obtaina feeling of accomplishment.
  • Independence Work Value: refers to the need to do tasks on your own and use creativity in the workplace. It also involves the need to get a job where you can make your own decisions.
  • Recognition Work Value: involves the need to have the opportunity for advancement, to obtain some prestige, and the need to have the potential for leadership.
  • Relationships Work Value: includes the need for friendly co-workers, the need to be able to help others, and the need to not be forced to go against your sense of right and wrong.
  • Support Work Value: involves the need for a supportive company, the need to be comfortable with management's style of supervision, and the need for a competent, considerate, and fair management.
  • Working Conditions Work Value: refers to the need to have your pay comparable to others, and the need for job security and good working conditions. This work value also includes the need to be busy all the time and the need to have many different types of tasks on the job.

Activity

Students will complete the Work Importance Profiler (WIP) on the California CareerZone (CareerZone) and identify their three most important work values. Students will then participate in a class discussion and reflect on occupations that may match their values.

Lesson Procedures

Lesson preparation:

  • Go to the CareerZone, sign in or create an account, and then complete the Work Importance Profiler (link in Materials section). Review the “California CareerZone Account Setup Instructor Notes”and the “California CareerZone Student Account Setup” to create a new account.
  • You do not need an account to do this activity but do need an account to save WIP results
  1. Introduction, explain that identifying and understanding personal work values is a very important part of deciding what career to pursue because work values are your beliefs about what is right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, ethical or unethical, etc. Because values are an important part of who you are, it is important to take them into consideration when career planning. Not including your values in career planning means you run the risk of preparing for a career which you subsequently find out doesn’t suit you.
  2. Explain that today you will be focusing on six important work values which are Achievement, Independence, Recognition, Relationships, Support, and Working Conditions.
  3. Introduce the WIP by telling students it will help them discover which work values are most important to them. Demonstrate how to complete the WIP by going to the CareerZone (link in Materials section)and taking the necessary actions on the first page. Tell students that the WIP will rank-order the six work values you have been talking about.
  1. Have students go online and complete the WIP. If you want your students to save their results but they do not have CareerZone accounts yet, distribute the “California CareerZone Student Account Setup” handoutand have them set up an account.
  1. Once students finish the assessment and are on the summary page, have them click on the green “View Occupations” hyperlink. Students will see a list of occupations in line with their most important work values.
  1. Discuss the WIP results. Ask students to share their highest values and the corresponding jobs that matched those values. Were there any surprises in terms of which values came out the highest or which jobs were identified as a potential match?

Estimated Time

One class session

Evaluation

  • Complete the WIPand identify their three most importantvalues
  • Participate in class discussion on values and occupational goals

Adaptations

  • Have students conduct interviews with parents or other adults asking them to talk about what is most important to them about their occupation. Have students take that information and identify the work values expressed by the interviewee.

Attributions

  • The vocabulary definitions were adapted from O*NET Work Importance Profiler User Guide, Version 3, Employment and Training Administration, United States Department of Labor, 2002.

California Career Resource Network, California Department of Education

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Self KnowledgeWhat Matters to Me?

California CareerZone Account Setup
Instructor’s Notes

The step-by-step account setup instructions are in the student handout. As the instructor, it is important for you to know that:

  • Students can complete some of the activities on the CareerZone without having a student account. However, students’ assessments results and occupational research will not be saved unless studentsare logged into their accounts. Because career and college planning is an ongoing process, having students save their work means they will be able to access it for another class or at a later date.
  • To help your students remember their passwords, you may wish to establish a password convention. Here are a few examples:
  • student initial + class period + lesson title [tsperiod2highschoolplan]
  • student initial + year + class period [ts2015period1]

  • student initial + school’s initials + year [tsDSH2015]
California CareerZone Student Account Setup

Follow these steps to set up your CareerZone account:

  1. Go to CareerZone,
  2. Select “Sign In”—the button is at the upper right hand corner of the page
  3. Select “Create an Account”
  4. Enter the required information:
  5. Username
  6. Password
  7. Zip code (of your school)
  8. First and last names (Suggest you do not use your full name.)
  9. E-mail
  10. School name
  11. Answer the dropdown menu questions
  12. Select “Create account”

California Career Resource Network, California Department of Education

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