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
- Identify outcomes across content areas in a specific grade level that align with building occupational and
- 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
- Engage with members of the school and the broader community, e.g. share information, invite feedback, facilitate
- 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
- Classroom discussions on career-related topics, e.g. labour market information, gig economy, globalization, work
- 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?
Frequency
Q: How frequent and under what conditions is this skill performed?
Level of Difficulty
Q: Under routine circumstances, how would you rate the level of difficulty in performing this skill?
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.