In this section...
Lesson Plans
Post-Secondary Educational Planning - An Introduction to Using BC Secondary School Focus Areas
Assumption: This lesson plan assumes that learners have been introduced to the concept of Focus Areas as part of Planning 10.
Goal: To use the BC Secondary School Focus Areas as a method of searching post-secondary program information on the Educational Planner website.
Objective: Using the Education Planner website and participating in the learning activities, learners will be able to:
- Use self-reflective assessment to select a Focus Area that contains post-secondary programs that may be of interest.
- Use the Education Planner selection filters to narrow down program searches.
- List different types of post-secondary programs that are in at least two Focus Areas.
- Identify that each Focus Area contains a variety of post-secondary program options.
Resources:
- computer access to the internet using Education Planner www.educationplanner.bc.ca.
- awareness of the Focus Now section in the Education Planner website.
- lip chart paper with each Focus Area written on the top as a heading.
Introduction to the Lesson: (Suggested Facilitator's Comment)
Today the demand for post-secondary education is increasing. By the year 2011, 73% of all jobs in BC will require some form of post-secondary education and between 2004 and 2011, 29% of all job openings in BC will require a university degree, while 44% will require other post-secondary training such as an apprenticeship, a college diploma or other career-based training. Only 15% will require secondary school completion. (Business Council of British Columbia , 2003 retrieved August 2004 from http://www.bcbc.com/ ).
Trying to find information about all the different educational programs that are available in BC can be an overwhelming task. However, we have been talking about Focus Areas and our own personal skills and interests. Having an idea of Focus Areas that you might be interested is a great start. Using the Focus Area search in the Focus Now section of Education Planner www.EducationPlanner.bc.ca can make your post-secondary exploration task much easier.
Pre Assessment: ( Facilitators may wish to explore the following questions)
- Do you think only one Focus Area will lead to university degrees?
- Which Focus Area do you think will have the largest variety of post-secondary programs?
- What are some of the programs you might predict will be in your Focus Area of choice?
Activities:
Start: Before organizing any one of the activities outlined below please have each member of the class spend 30 - 45 minutes using and exploring the Focus Now section of Education Planner. The Focus Now section is located in the top right hand corner of the Home Page. The design of the site is very intuitive and there is end-user help built into each section of the site. As the instructor, you may decide to walk the class through a demonstration of the site, however we have found most learners can easily navigate the system on their own. The self-exploration of the site also serves to reinforce the learner's own confidence with using Education Planner.
Step One: Self Reflective Assessment Put into Practice.
Comment: It is important that learners have time to reflect on their interests, skills and abilities before starting to do a program search. Some learners will know what it is they are interested in. However, others may not be sure. If this is the case some self-reflective work might be a good idea before continuing to search Education Planner.
Quick Self-reflective Assessment Games (Facilitators might want to use one of these games or have the learners revisit the assessment work they have been doing as part of their Planning 10 course work as a refresher)
A) Autobiographies: Ask each learner to write an autobiography for themselves as if they were 25 years older than they are today. The autobiography should be no longer than a page and include information such as:
- After leaving high school I ......................
- I trained to be a ............................., but .....................................
- After I did ..............................., I .................................
- Today I work as a ...................................................
- It is a .................... job/career, because .............................
B) My Skills Inventory: This is a quick method to help learners recap or reveal their skills, especially skills that may not be obvious to other people. Ask each learner for secondary skills and experiences in addition to work-oriented skills (school work can be considered work-oriented skills if the learners have little or no work experience).
For example ask each learner to complete several statements like the following:
- Things I do well that I don't usually use in my daily work are .................
- Things that I enjoy doing when I'm working are .............................
- In my free time ..................................................................
- Skills I would enjoy enhancing are .............................................
- Skills that I could teach someone are ...........................................
- One of the best work/school experiences I have had is because ...................
- I have little work experience but I know I can ..................................
- In school I can learn ....................................... easily
- I like the way .................................................. is taught.
Step Two: Ask the learners work in groups of two and help each other summarize their skills and interests. Usually it is very difficult for individuals (especially secondary school students) to see their own strengths. Sometimes a partner is better able to say "Ha! I think it looks like you are good at .......................... or interested in ........................"
Step Three : Have the learners return to the Education Planner website and conduct a program search by selecting a Focus Area and taking a look at each of the program profiles that come up.
Acknowledgement: Ideas for the quick self-reflection assessment games came from CUSO Education Department, Development Education Basics & Tools: A Collection of Popular Education Resources and Activities. Ottawa , Ontario .
Step Four: The results menu from a search done strictly by Focus Area will yield a wide variety of programs. Ask the learners to try to narrow their searches by applying one or more of the filters found on the left hand menu. For example: the learner may what to know about institutions that are close to their homes. They can use the selection filters to request program lists by institution or by region. The results menu will only bring up the programs for the specified criteria. This will narrow the search. Searching can be narrowed by:
- Region in the province
- Institution
- Length of Program
- Credential
Step Five : Ask the learners to search Education Planner using a variety of Focus Areas and explore the different types of programs they find. Allow 15 -30 minutes.
Summary - Reinforcement of Learning
Post flip chart paper with the Focus Area headings up in the room and Invite each learner to list the program names and programs types that they found under the Focus Area heading on the flip chart that best categorizes the program. When the flip charts are complete ask students to present each of them to the class.
Closure or Post- Assessment
Ask the learners to go back to the questions first asked during the Pre-Assessment of this lesson and see if they now have better information to share. Take a few minutes for a final debrief.
BC Secondary School
Planning 10
Organizer : Education and Careers
Sub-Organizer : Post-Secondary Education and Training