Summary
This lesson introduces students to career clusters and their usefulness for exploring a variety of careers.
Essential Question(s)
How do you find a career you are interested in? What is the best way to explore careers?
Snapshot
Engage
Students take a short quiz to gauge what they know about careers and employment.
Explore
Through a Collective Brain Dump activity, students brainstorm careers that might fall into the Health career cluster.
Explain
Students form groups and explore the variety of jobs in each of the 16 career clusters by creating a group Card Sort.
Extend
Students evaluate their Card Sort game and invite another group to play it.
Evaluate
The Card Sort creation, graphic organizer, and rubric activity all serve as assessments for this lesson.
Materials
Lesson Slides (attached)
Career Clusters group organizer (attached)
What do you know about careers student quiz (attached)
Career Cluster handout (attached)
Card Sort sets (attached; one set per group of four students)
Card Sort Rubric (attached)
Student access to internet and devices
Index cards, eight for each student in the class
Engage
10 Minute(s)
Using the attached Lesson Slides, show slides 2–3, which include the title and essential questions for this lesson. Ask students to get out a sheet of notebook paper and number 1 through 4. Tell students that we will explore what they know about careers.
Go through slides 4–7. On each slide, read the question aloud and allow students time to choose an answer.
Once students have completed the four questions, have them compare their answers with an Elbow Partner. Allow students to discuss their answers and change any if they believe their partner might have a better answer. Once partners have discussed their answers, share correct answers and see how the class did as a whole.
Explore
10 Minute(s)
From question 4, transition the class to a discussion of career clusters. Career clusters are used by the U.S. Department of Labor, the nation's source of labor and employment information, to categorize its 867 defined occupations. Show slide 8 for a definition of career clusters.
Students will participate in a K20 strategy called Collective Brain Dump. Display slide 9 and ask students to turn their notebook paper to the back side. In 1 minute, brainstorm as many different jobs as possible that might be listed in the career cluster of Health. A timer is embedded on the slide that you can use to time the activity.
Display slide 10. Ask students to find two other students to work with or assign students to groups of three. In each group, students should compare the number of jobs that each listed and find the total among the three lists. Duplicate jobs count only ONCE. For example, if all three students listed "doctor," it would count as only one entry. Ask groups to share their total number and to share out some of the jobs that might be found in this cluster.
Explain
50 Minute(s)
Now that students have some idea of the reason for career clusters, pass out the attached Career Cluster handout. Explain that there are 16 career clusters and within each cluster there are job pathways that feature similar skills and products. Go over the cluster names and have students guess what jobs might be associated with some of the pathways (subgroups) in the handout.
Assign students to groups of four. Pass out one graphic organizer and one Card Sort set to each group. Each card has the name of a career cluster, sixteen in all. Give each student within the group eight index cards. Tell groups that they will work together to find two jobs for each cluster, making a total of 32 job cards.
Have students write their name on each of their eight cards in the upper right corner. Students should individually fill out their eight index cards with a job listed on one side of the index card and a brief explanation of the job in their own words on the back side of the index card. They also add the median salary and education needed to obtain that job. They are to add their cards to the card sort set and also list the jobs they investigated on the group's Card Sort graphic organizer. Students will need internet access and devices to research the jobs for each cluster. The group should find two jobs that represent each cluster, 32 jobs in all.
See slides 11–12 for group directions. All students should use the Bureau of Labor Statistics Career Outlook page for research: https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2015/article/career-clusters.htm.
Have groups place all completed index cards in the Card Sort set and turn in their completed career cluster organizer, which acts as an answer key for their Card Sort.
Extend
30 Minute(s)
After each group has completed its Card Sort set, pass out the attached Card Sort Rubric. Have groups evaluate their Card Sorts and their group effort in producing the Card Sorts (see slide 13). The self-evaluation rubric can serve as a summative assessment of their work. Give students the opportunity to correct any errors in their card sort that they may see or realize through this rubric activity. You can use their self-evaluation for grading purposes, if needed.
After groups have assessed their own Card Sorts, allow time for each group to play another group's Card Sort and give verbal feedback to that group about how the game went. The graphic organizer for each group's Card Sort can serve as an answer key if students cannot figure out the cluster in which a job might belong.
Evaluate
The group graphic organizer and individual index cards from the Card Sort will serve as assessments for this lesson. The completed rubric can also serve as an assessment for the card sort project.
Resources
Advance Career Tech Education. (n.d.). Career clusters. https://www.careertech.org/sites/default/files/CareerClustersPathways.pdf
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2018). BLS career info by clusters. https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2015/article/career-clusters.htm
K20 Center. (n.d.). Card sort. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/d9908066f654727934df7bf4f506976b
K20 Center. (n.d.). Collective brain dump. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/baee4e90c5fa1a7060ca04dd8b00450e
K20 Center. (n.d.). Elbow partners. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/ccc07ea2d6099763c2dbc9d05b00c4b4