Middle School
This Curriculum Companion is a critical part of the roadmap to use the Careers in Color (CIC) platform. It provides activities, assignments, and the developmental principles that make CIC’s instructional practices effective in supporting student success and career exploration.
Key features of Your Curriculum Companion include:
CIC allows educators and schools to meet the standards defined in the National Alliance for Secondary Education Transition and their quality Indicators for Career Exploration programs.
What Makes CIC’s Relevant?
Research shows that preparation for the transition from secondary school to postsecondary education, employment, and independent living must begin before high school completion. Students begin career exploration in earlier grades in order to maximize their middle and high school experiences.
How we educate students is changing based on generational needs and outlook. Representation matters and thereby inspires students to explore career options where they experience professionals who look like them! This generation is concerned with developing cultural awareness, which can be explored through CIC’s video library with professionals of color.
What do we know about Generation Z?
(Born between 1997 – 2012)
Data shows that by 2025:
CIC’s Approach
CIC connects students with people that look like them–allowing for the opportunity to learn directly from them their lived experiences and personalized journey to the careers that they are passionate about. Use videos of professionals as a way to get students excited about learning and increasing classroom engagement activities.
Assemble short articles focused on resume building, skills employers are looking for, interview tips that allows educators to integrate these resources seamlessly into classroom or homework assignments. Gather labor market analysis, and industry information, and identifies professional organizations associated with specific industries to assist in their career exploration by organizing the curriculum in a more meaningful way to meet student needs.
Show students how to harness and leverage their own strengths, perspectives, and truths to be able to fully realize their own dreams. Access to professionals of color featured here, helps to create safe spaces inside and outside the classroom for discussion to bolster understanding of what takes to be successful and contribute to diverse working environments.
CIC Videos are supported with supplemental learning materials for teachers to incorporate into their lesson plans. You can easily use any of the videos to engage students in meaningful career exploration activities.
These are basic guidelines for how best to utilize the CIC videos in your work with students:
Recommended Learning Activities
Students can record brief video recaps on what they learned that day from prescribed CIC assignments. The ease for you as the teacher, is an encapsulated snapshot to evaluate the students engagement and retention.
CIC recommends the use of group assignments/ projects as well. Students can submit separate clips of videos to one another and compile them into a finished product, or send videos to each other for feedback.
Helpful Tips
Learning Objectives
TOPIC: Self Awareness & Empowerment
DESCRIPTION: In these assignments, students will focus on answering questions focused on their interests and in what skills they excel. In addition, students will explore what similarities/ connections they might have to one of the professional profiles presented.
All assignments listed in this module will meet the following learning outcome(s):
LO#1: Learn how personal preferences, skills, and interests can influence career choices
Assignment: Have students respond verbally to the following questions; their responses do not need to be fully completed
- What interests you?
- List 3 activities you enjoy spending time doing.
- List 3 things you’re good at.
- How would your friends describe you?
- List 3 ways they’d explain what you’re like.
Assignment: If you could be anything in the world, what would be and why? (Written response of 2-3 paragraphs)
Group Assignment: Ask students to create a 1–2-minute video on what they found most interesting and relatable about the professional profiled. No more than 3 students to a group.
Group Assignment: Watch “Getting to Know” video of one of the professionals and answer the following questions (verbally or written):
- What are their thoughts of the person?
- Could they relate to anything stated?
- Students should reflect on their unique strengths, skills, and career aspirations
Assignment: Career Journal – Students should be given 3-5 minutes every week to journal or do video of their thoughts, reservations, discoveries about careers exploration and themselves. The entry must contain at least one new word/ term learned from their review of CIC materials or outside research.
TOPIC: Career Awareness & Exploration
DESCRIPTION: In these assignments, students will do exploratory exercises and introduction to careers. The goal is to build the students awareness and curiosity about the variety of professions. All assignments listed in this module will meet the following learning outcome(s):
LO#1: Learn how personal preferences, skills, and interests can influence career choices
LO#2: Demonstrate understanding of the education and training needed to achieve career goals
LO#3: Use research skills to locate, evaluate, and interpret career and educational information
Assignment: Watch “Career Video #2” and have students submit their own understanding of the education and training needed to achieve the career goal(s) identified in the video in a written response.
Group Assignment: Ask students to respond in a group discussion to the following questions:
- What skillsets are necessary to be successful in this field?
- What would you want to learn more about as it relates to this field/ profession?
Assignment: Watch “Career Video #1” and have students explain their understanding of the education and training needed to achieve career goal(s) identified in written response.
Group Assignment: Ask students to respond in a group discussion to the following questions:
- What is one critical takeaway from the video?
- Does this career interest you? Why?
Assignment: Have students review the affiliate organization listing. Ask students (this can be an individual or group assignment) to select one of the organizations listed and write a 1–2-page paper or do a power point presentation on:
- What is the organization about?
- What information has been the most helpful?
Group Assignment: Students should identify in a written response/ or the creation of an infographic about an organization(s) that should be added to the list and explain why.
TOPIC: Skill Development and Professional Growth
DESCRIPTION: Jobs and careers are constantly shifting. Understanding the skills required in certain careers/ professions is extremely important in planning educational opportunities for high school and beyond. Starting the process of understanding career planning now. In addition, students will explore the latest trends in resume building and interviewing. All assignments listed in this module will meet the following learning outcome(s):
LO#3: Use research skills to locate, evaluate, and interpret career and educational information
LO#4: Demonstrate awareness of educational, vocational, and technical training opportunities available in high school
Assignment: Watch “Skill Development” video and identify what skills are associated with this career or job. This could be accomplished in 30 second video clip recap with the students response to the following:
- How has this person grown as a professional?
- What are areas that he/ she still needs to work on?
Group Assignment: Have students research how this job/ profession may have changed in the last 5 years. This should 2 -3 PowerPoint slide.
Assignment: Interviewing Skills- select a reading of an article from “Interviewing Tips” under Career Resources. Ask students to discuss and reflect on (teacher discretion: individual or group task):
- What are 2-3 important points in the article that you found helpful?
- How is this information useful in exploring job/ career options?
Assignment: Meeting the Skills Employers Want – Assign a reading of an article from “Skills Employers Want” under Career Resources. Ask students to discuss and reflect on (individual or group task):
- What are 2-3 important points in the article?
- How is this information useful in exploring job/ career options?
Assignment: Have students research educational, vocational, technical training opportunities, and area high schools that would best assist in pursuing the job/ career option discussed; 1 -2-page paper.
Assignment: Watch “The Lessons Learned” Video and ask each student to provide a written respond to the following questions:
- Are you inspired? Why or why not?
- Is there one thing from the video that you can implement today to improve your life?
Assignment: Have students research the internet for free career assessment/ test online to identify what careers were identified that best suit. Do a 2–3-minute video/ PowerPoint presentation answering:
- What new findings surprised you?
- What are you most interested in based on the findings?
- What should be your next steps in this career exploration assignment?
Group Assignment: Resume Building- select a reading of an article from “Resume Tips” under Career Resources. Ask students to discuss and reflect on:
- What are 2-3 important points in the article?
- How is this information useful in exploring job/ career options?
TOPIC: Mapping the Future
DESCRIPTION: Students should utilize all of the insights from the videos, information gathered from the articles, reports, and professional organizations on the CIC platform to draft roadmap of potential career endeavors or occupations. The assignments noted in this module should be completed towards the end of term/semester. All assignments listed in this module will meet the following learning outcome(s):
LO#1: Learn how personal preferences, skills, and interests can influence career choices
LO#2: Demonstrate understanding of the education and training needed to achieve career goals
LO#3: Use research skills to locate, evaluate, and interpret career and educational information
LO#4: Demonstrate awareness of educational, vocational, and technical training opportunities available in high school
Assignment: Career Paper & Presentation – Students should write a paper/ PowerPoint presentation/ or video covering the following:
- What are 1-2 career options that they are interested in pursuing?
- What are the educational requirements?
- What’s the average yearly salary?
- Identify job description(s) and determine what skills are needed to be successful
- Which high school and training program are in your area would assist you in meeting the career identified?
- What are other interesting requirements/ expectations discovered about job(s)?
ACTIVITY: Self-Survey: Students should provide written responses to the following questions
- What kind of careers are you interested in exploring?
- Have you changed your mind since you began learning about career exploration?
- Why do these careers interest you?
ACTIVITY: My Career Plan – Students should provide written responses to the following questions:
- Do I feel more confident to explore careers on my own and why or why not?
- How will I plan to continue exploring careers on my own?
- What is my biggest takeaway so far from exploring careers?
- Are there any questions that you still have about careers that were not answered? How will you find the answers?