Summary
This lesson focuses on scaffolding the use of the Get a Life college and career simulation game in the classroom, specifically targeting career awareness in middle school students. Participants will play the game and experience classroom activities designed to process the gameplay and facilitate discussion about how salary, education level, and career/life satisfaction intersect.
Essential Questions
How does postsecondary education benefit you?
Learning Goals
The student can explain that different careers require different levels of education.
The student can compare level of education to trends in salary and the number of career choices available.
The student can identify factors that contribute to career satisfaction over a lifetime.
The student can create a personal goal towards growing their future career options.
Snapshot
Engage
Students choose a career that interests them and complete a Preflections exercise to activate their prior knowledge about educational requirements and work-life balance.
Explore
Students play the Get a Life game and complete a 3-2-1 activity about the relationships between career, income, and education.
Explain
Students compare the observations they made in the 3-2-1 activity after playing the game to research about career satisfaction.
Extend
Students play the Get a Life game multiple times with specific challenge parameters.
Evaluate
Students return to the Preflections exercise and discuss what they have learned about the relationship between education, income, and careers.
Materials List
Get a Life! Activity Slides (attached)
Character Sheet and Achievements handout (attached; print two-sided; one per student)
3-2-1 Activity handout (attached; one per student)
Career Cards (attached; one per group)
Career Cluster Info Sheets (attached; one per career group)
Research Brief (attached; one per student)
Teacher’s Guide (attached; optional)
Game Portal Guide (attached; optional)
Laptops with Internet access
K20 Game Portal teacher account
6-sided dice (one per career group)
Highlighter (one per student)
Notebook paper (one per student)
Engage
45 Minute(s)
Use the attached Activity slides to guide the lesson. To begin, display slides 3-4. Discuss with the student the essential question and learning objectives.
Display slide 5 and ask students to choose a career cluster and form a group for each cluster, groups of 2-3 are best.
Display slide 6. Pass out the corresponding Career Card and dice to each group. Try to make sure all of the clusters are evenly distributed among your class. Once students have their Career Card, have each of them roll a dice (or otherwise randomly assign a number from 1 to 6 to each student). The number each student rolls reflects their level of education and their resulting career based on the possible careers numbered 1–6 on each card.
Next, display slide 7 and pass out the Character Sheet to each student and a dice to each group. Have students roll the dice to discover their character from the Character and Achievements handout.
Then display slide 8 and have students take turns rolling the dice to discover their ACT score. Use the chart below:
Roll a 1 and get a score of 15
Roll a 2 and get a score of 19
Roll a 3 and get a score of 23
Roll a 4 and get a score of 32
Roll a 5 and get a score 34
Roll a 6 and get a perfect score of 36!
Have the students fill in their Character Sheet with their ACT score, their career, and the college they expect the character to attend. They can then sketch their character in the space provided. Students should begin to recognize the mediating factor level of education has on their further education choices and subsequent career options.
Next, display slide 9 and introduce the Preflections instructional strategy to have your students respond to the following "My Career" questions on the Character Sheet:
How much do you expect to be paid for this job?
Do you think this is higher or lower than the average income?
What kind of education does this career require?
How will this career affect your life outside of work (time with family/friends, good health, personal fulfillment)?
How will this career enable you to help society or your community?
What else would you like to know about this career?
Explore
45 Minute(s)
Display slide 10, students will now play through Get a Life. Pass out laptops or facilitate another means for students to use a computer with internet access. Have the students navigate to the game portal link you added to the slide. Encourage the students to explore the game and pay close attention to the relationships between education, income, debt, and career choice.
After students have had enough time to play the game at least twice, display slide 11, introduce the 3-2-1 strategy, and distribute the 3-2-1 Activity handout for each student to complete. Depending on the class size, follow up with either a whole-class or small group discussion of their observations related to the 3-2-1 questions:
What three things did you learn or notice about the relationship between income, career, and education?
What are 2 questions you still have?
What is 1 thing you found interesting?
If time constraints are a concern, this is a good stopping point.
Explain
30 Minute(s)
Form groups of 2–5 students based on which career clusters most interest them. These do not have to be the same clusters they chose previously. Hand each group the appropriate Career Cluster Info Sheet based on their chosen career.
Show slide 12. Distribute the Research Brief and a highlighter to each student. Have students read the brief individually and take notes using a Why-Lighting strategy, then read their Career Cluster Info Sheet. Each student should highlight at least three ideas in the Research Brief that are the most interesting to them and note in the margins why they highlighted that idea. Ask students to also highlight at least one career on the Career Cluster Info Sheet they would like to learn more about and note in the margins why they think that job would be satisfying.
After finishing the reading strategy, ask groups to discuss what they have highlighted and why. Then, lead a whole-class discussion about what makes a job meaningful.
If time constraints are a concern, this is a good stopping point.
Extend
40 Minute(s)
Display slide 13. Students will now get the chance to play Get a Life again with specific challenges to guide them. These challenges are located on the back of the Character Sheet. As they play, students should check off the different achievements they reach on their character sheet. Each time the student completes a game and gets their character to retirement, they'll see feedback on their comfort level, civic performance, and savings achievement.
Evaluate
20 Minute(s)
Display slide 14. After playing through the game with challenges, have students participate in a survey to measure what they have learned about the relationship between postsecondary education and career options.
Click to revel each survey statement, this will help students process information and resolve misconceptions. Considering having students stand up or sit down to share their answer for agree or disagree. Discuss the responses and how students formed their ideas after each poll.
Agree/Disagree: The higher the education, the higher the pay.
Agree/Disagree: College is too expensive for me. (Discuss how the increased future salary that accompanies many college degrees can offset the education costs, depending on the chosen career path.)
Agree/Disagree: I learned about new jobs that I didn’t know existed before this activity.
Agree/Disagree: I was right about the level of education needed on my Character Sheet.
Agree/Disagree: My thoughts on post-secondary opportunities have changed.
Agree/Disagree: There are jobs I'd consider now that I didn’t know about before this activity.
Display slide 15 and have students reference their Character Sheet from the Engage activity and their Research Brief from the Explain. Ask them to use these materials to identify some goals or actions for the next few years of school that will help them improve their chances of reaching a career and a lifestyle that blends comfort, balance, and purpose. Have students write their goals on a sheet of notebook paper.
Research Rationale
See attached Research Brief.
Resources
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