As we approach the end of this African American History Month, how would you like to address two critical academic and workplace skills related the topic? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has just published a report, "African-Americans in the American Workforce," featured in this month's Workforce GPS newsletter. The report includes a bar chart showing the participation rate of African American Officials and Managers from 1966-2013.
Students who are preparing to pass their HSE exam often really struggle with interpreting charts. I wonder if interpreting charts in articles like these might be a good way to practice both interpreting and creating charts. I can envision many collaborative activities around this topic that might even include a bit of MS Excel work, an ideal application to play with all sorts of charts.
EEOC also published American Experiences Versus American Expectations (2015), which has many workforce stats covering African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, American Indians / Alaskan Natives, and Women, that could be interpreted into charts. I would imagine that students would learn a lot and enjoy comparing stats after creating and even illustrating charts. What do you think? Please share your ideas on how to use these or other resources to help students create and interpret charts from textual information.
Leecy