Whether you think of them as employability, professional, or soft skills, these are the skills employers, colleges, and teachers desire in the workplace and classroom. Discover how you can integrate employability skill development into your curriculum. Through the development of these skills, students gain practical experience and confidence, making them more competitive in the job market, and/or better prepared for college.
Learn how one high school leveraged its advisory boards to identify the skills most valued by employers. With the help of work done by others (State of Indiana Employability Skills and MyWays Competencies Domains), a group of teachers, administrators, and community/business representatives worked together to further develop the 10 employability skills of emphasis: adaptability, communication, critical thinking, independence, initiative, perseverance, problem solving, professionalism, team work, and time management. Teachers are encouraged to embed some or all of these skills into their classrooms and assess student achievement using a grading rubric for each skill. Those who are successfully embedding the skills are finding not only surprising results, but are also happy to have a common language to use with students. Each employability skill is accompanied by two “Can You…?” questions. Consistent exposure to these skills helps students not only build a stronger foundation of skills, but also equips them with the language to use when describing their skills.
After this session, you will be able to:- Follow a process for developing employability skills of emphasis leveraging advisory board and teacher input.
- Examine how employability skills can be integrated into classroom instruction.
- Systematize assessment of employability skills in their students.
