Online Course: Introduction to Workforce Preparation Activities and Employability Skills

This thread is connected to the online course, Introduction to Workforce Preparation Activities and Employability Skills, freely available anytime, anywhere in the LINCS Learning Portal.

  • Were there skills which were not explicitly included in the workplace preparation activities discussed? Note that there is no “right” answer here. Consider the alignments and intersections between the different skill sets.
  • Many teachers are probably already integrating some or all of the skills and competencies of workforce preparation activities into classroom instruction. Reflect on your own experiences and the resources you have used to plan your curriculum. Have you used any of the resources presented in this course? Are there others you have used? Which ones seem to be the most effective? How do you know? 

Comments

I am new to this arena. I have learned the importance of workplace skills and how they are integrated in to the curriculum. I am new to this type of lesson planning.

Session 1 did a good job of outlining the skill sets that should be taught for workforce preparation.  I am an ABE teacher, so I don't deal with many of these sets directly, although I do reference them quite often in discussions.

I love the idea of integrating employability skills with life and academic skills. I feel it is a full range of knowledge that students can gain. This also helps to retrain some individuals going back out into the work world after retirement.

One of the first steps to guarantee successful transition into the workplace or to pursue secondary education is to carefully survey student's acknowledgment of his/her barriers.  Once barriers are identified; it will be important to set up a plan of action to remove the barriers which entails using critical thinking and problem solving.  Using the T-bar to identify the goal of moving into the workforce or entering education can be resolved in the group activity and gives a realistic approach to finding solutions.

Sixteen year old students in the Adult Education classroom. I am having a hard time dealing with the immaturity they bring into the classroom. The majority I work with are coming from a home school environment and have not been modeled/taught teamwork or working with others. They are not flexible, professional nor self-disciplined (ex. get out of bed before 11:00 am). I try to incorporate lessons to meet these deficiencies. It is challenging and frustrating at times and I wish there was more hours in the day to conquer them! I plan on continuing to use the skill checklist to guide evaluations of my students.

I agree with you Elmeda. Most 16/17 year olds do not possess the self management skills and discipline expected in an adult classroom. As adult education instructors, we walk  a fine line with this type of student that expects to be driven all the way instead of mapping out their own study path. Although technology in some cases helps to engage them, their attention span is very short and they quickly lose interest and are easily discouraged if some lessons challenge them.

I am still a little new to WIOA; however, this course has enlightened me more on the WIOA requirements. I have been incorporating math and reading lessons with day-to-day life activities. For example, when doing operations with whole numbers, I would incorporate aspects of helping someone come up with a budget, bill payments (monthly and annually),  and savings, using various math websites . In reading and language lessons, I look for reading and language texts covering various aspects of life - biographies, real-life stories, science, and social studies articles for doing comprehension, vocabulary, editing, and writing exercises. I use STAR resources, ReadWorks, Newsela, and other appropriate online resources.

It is extremely vital today for educators to prepare our students employability skills to enter the workforce. I have 24 years of experience of preparing our student populations for employability skills. There are many barriers for employment, in today's struggling economy which will impact future employment particularly during this time of the COVID-19 crisis. We have to be certain to teach and  reinforce the job skills, critical thinking, decision making, and literacy programs. Such curriculums are critical to assist individuals in seeking a secure a job.  

I work in a Correctional setting.  For our students, the "soft skills" are absolutely critical for workplace success and retention.  Many of our students have difficulty with Anger Management and Conflict Resolution.  Without doing some work in those key areas, many are unlikely to be able to hold a job for any length of time. Some simply have never understood how to interact appropriately with a supervisor or colleague.

I am most familiar with using the CCRSAEs in our classes.  I'm grateful to have these new resources brought to my attention, specifically regarding Employability, Workforce Preparation, Self-Management, Problem-Solving, and more.  It is critical that we can show that our classes are incorporating these resources, especially as we prepare for Program Quality Reviews and Site Visits/Evaluations.

This course was so useful to me at this time. I have a small group of young students who have not been in the workforce yet, and I have been giving them group lessons that pertain to the workforce. Last week we did group lessons from New Readers Press WorkWise: Math at Work and this week we have been using McGraw-Hill WorkForce Workplace Skills--Locating Information. I am grateful to find new resources in this training. I have downloaded resources to use in the classroom.

Hello, I have found this course to be very informative as a Career Readiness Instructor.  I have utilized the contextualized lesson for sometime in my class lessons this will further enhance students knowledge about college and workforce readiness.  I really learned a lot as I worked through this lesson and will apply in my classroom

In my short experience with adult education, the difficulties/trauma/complications of life can prove to be such a hindrance to even getting to the place where you can objectively analyze your daily routine in a flowchart, or discuss personal situations in a group setting. However, I like the idea of using real-life but non-persopnal scenarios to help students practice problem-solving strategies, especially in a group setting so that everyone can work together. 

After completing the first section of Workforce Prep and Employability Skills, I realize that goal-setting needs to be more of a focus in our classes. I like the activity suggestions of teamwork because most places of employment require you to work with others. I think having some examples of actual workplace scenarios(projects, problem solving, etc) would be helpful in this course so instructors would have some examples to get started. 

I agree that in today's workplace so many lack the basic skills that are needed to be a successful employee of a company with the prospect of advancement or even to interact in a team situation at home, in the community or in any area of life. 

Perseverance and grit are two characteristics that can have great bearing on one's outcome in life, and one's success in the workplace.  As instructors, we would do well to encourage these along with the other skills and characteristics covered.

This was a wonderful opportunity for me to review the WIOA principles as well as to learning more regarding IETs and contextualized lessons.  I found the examples very helpful. 

I really appreciated all of the suggested lessons and reading your comments as well. One theme I notice is group activity...I struggle incorporating any group activity into my teaching as our classes are asynchronous. Students can do coursework at their own pace on a platform that is fairly individualized. We do meet in person, but only one student at a time due to COVID restrictions. We do also have Zoom lessons that are extra-credit options for students, but it is hard to build a consistent group in order to do a group activity. Additionally, our students come in at all levels, and generally are very shy and dislike participating in group activities. Part of the reason we have so much 1:1 work is because it helps us to be trauma-informed. I think that I would just like some more ideas for how workforce training can be incorporated into our program while maintaining our 1:1 trauma-informed structure. One example would be having students work with a teacher to create their own schedule to learn time-management and self-management skills. I'm curious whether anyone else has ideas?

After reading through many of the comments and suggestions in this forum, I am excited to implement some of the strategies or lessons listed.  Very informative to read real life example of how to engage with your students.  Thanks

This course was difficult to follow. At the end of each page there were arrows. I would follow an arrow to the nextpage  as I continued through what I thought was the remainder of the course. I completed the evaluation where as upon completion, you were to access and print the completion certificate. Where is this located? This was frustrating, time consuming, and after 3 hours, I have no certificate.

Good grief! I have worked on this for hours. Who in the world completes their initial course in the time allotment? My first ABE teaching experience was in a career training institute. As a result, integrating a student's onsite training/workforce experiences and their assessment-based academic requirements for measurable gains in ABE class was much easier than if those had been mutually exclusive. Some aspects of workforce preparation were accomplished through student involvement in organizations, their responsibility for goal setting and self monitoring, time management coaching, etc. 

The course provides a solid overview of WIOA.  A skill not specifially addressed was the student's ability to devise several plans for a problem.  Often students are looking for "the solution" rather than multiple routes.  They need to be able to produce more than one solution, as often, the first one or two do not work.

I'm adding my comment to other similar ones, to note that I've put in several hours over a 3 day period, clicked every hyperlink, read, watched videos and passed quizzes, comprehension, etc. but I still have no full list of check marks by the course sections, and no certificate.  I clicked onto links for additional resources and met notices of "page not found". At this point, I'm reluctant to recommend this course, which is sad because the resources within are wonderful.

Problem Solving with multiples plans.  Too often there is a dicotomy of this OR that plan or answer.  Rather than the ablility to develop flexible solutions.  In ABE and life, too often we need flexible options not rigid.