Guidance Lesson: Career Planning (9th & 10th Grade)

Guidance Lesson:

Career Planning:

 

^What does it cost?

 

Grade Level:  9 – 10

The Start of Career Planning

By the time students enter high school, they have a general sense of what a career and/or job is. They are also aware that there is a difference in earnings between different occupations. This lesson will build on previous observations/knowledge and will add a more concrete understanding of what different levels of education entail.

The first part of the lesson focuses on different levels of education and their potential earnings, typically. The second part of the lesson is using the board game Life® as a fun way to help cement the idea that education level will have

By using a monthly budget where the student to calculate how much money is left over at the end of the month, students will gain a more tangible understanding of how their occupation, and education level, will impact their future.

Lesson Plan 1: Setting up

Materials Needed: PowerPoint, Handout

For the first part of this lesson plan, we want to bring to their awareness the types of earnings available for different types of education levels. This can be personalized to the needs of the school. For example, if there is a military base nearby, school counselors can add information about earnings for military members.

Lesson Plan 2:

Materials: PowerPoint (to access please click on the link above), Life® board game, monthly budget, occupation handout, “pink slips”

For this part of the lesson, the board game is used to follow through and make the information they learned from part 1 more memorable. The board game is an illustration, using only the spin dial.

To move each student, we hand out each student a random occupation and a monthly budget. The occupation handout includes a job description, the educational level required, and expected salary/wages. The monthly budget includes cost of living information (rent, mortgage, etc) as well as the cost of amenities.

To play the game, students choose the type of live they want: do they drive or ride the bus? Do they rent? Live alone? Do they have internet at home? They will see that they may need to adjust amenities and/or living situation they choose

 

depending on their occupation earnings.

“Pink slips” are cards given to students to show them that life is unpredictable, instead of the game’s cards. (This can be used as a classroom management piece, with disruptive behavior being rewarded with a pink slip.) An example for a pink slip is: There was storm damage to your car. It will cost $2000 to fix. 

This game can be played until a time limit is reached or everyone has a turn.

Closing: Discussion

Once students have filled out their budgets and can see the state of their future finances, given a certain occupation, discuss how educational achievement and occupational training can limit or expand the possibilities for their future.

Emphasize that they can start planning now so that their high school schedule will reflect their future goals.

Tips:

-          Larger classrooms can be broken into smaller groups and brought back together for the closing to discuss the lesson.

-          Personalize this to your school!! Each school has its own needs, and the types of occupations, “pink slips,” cost of living, and available resources can be changed to make them more relevant to the school. E.g. Many students might not have thought how much internet costs on average.