The unit I would like to adjust is one that covers the employment process.  In the past I have taught the students how to write a resume and a cover letter.  For their assessment I normally have given them a paper/pen test along with grading their resumes and cover letters.  However, I have never been satisfied with the results of this unit.  I don't feel like it is "real" enough.

Therefore, I would like to make it more "real" for the students by making it more of a project-based assessment rather than a paper/pen assessment.  I want to expand the unit, bringing in the entire employment process (reading the want ads; completing applications; writing and sending resumes, cover letters and follow-up letters; and preparing and completing interviews).

I hope to involve the community in this project.  I plan to ask local businesses to provide a manager to complete mock interviews with the students.  I also want to have the local businesses provide suggestions to the students regarding improvement of interviewing techniques.  I will also ask the professionals to provide tips to the students regarding beginning a new job.

I hope to incorporate different forms of assessment throughout the unit.  As an English teacher, I feel it is extremely important to have the students reflect on their experiences through writing.  However, instead of the traditional essay question at the end of an objective test, I plan to use different types of assessments along the way.  The students will write reflection papers about their experiences and what they have learned. In addition, they will write technically when completing the resume and different types of letters that are associated with employment.  They will also be assessed on how well they prepare for an interview as well as their performance in an interview.  There will be other smaller assessments throughout the unit as well.  These types of assessments are in sharp contrast to the one I previously used through this unit. 

• This is a lower level English class. 
• The students who enroll in this class are those who are expecting to go straight into the workforce or possibly attend a local junior college. 
• Typically, the students who enroll in English IVA respond to hands-on projects rather than paper/pen,  tests. 
• Most of the students are looking for jobs or are employed but may want to change jobs. 
• Most of these students will choose to stay close to this community upon graduation rather than move away.

• Is the unit I propose a better way of teaching the employment process  than the traditional way? 
• Can I actually make this unit lifelike? 
• Will the students take this unit more seriously if we use people in the "real" world to assess how the students present themselves in interviews as well as through their paperwork. 
• Will this approach be better than the traditional one? 
• Will I be able to obtain the cooperation from community businesses? 
• Will it be lifelike? 
• Could it help the students obtain part-time jobs now? 

• Individualized rubrics are much better than the general rubric I used for other assignments. It took a long time to create them, but it now takes a lot less time to grade the assignments and  projects.
• The unit takes longer than I anticipated.  It will probably speed up as I get used to the additions to the unit.
• Judging by the reactions and comments of the students, this unit is successful in making the employment process as "real" as possible.
• The unit is well worth the time spent on it.
• Depending on others to commit to the project slows the process down.  I really wanted to get the community involved, but it has not happened yet.  Not as many community members were interested in helping as I thought. Because they have not responded, I have not been able to stay on track with the timing of the unit.  It is taking a lot longer than anticipated.  Although it has been slow, having "real" managers involved in the mock interviews will lend a bit of realism that cannot be achieved otherwise.  So, I plan to attempt this again in the second semester.

ECOS Web site

- Preparation for choosing a career to research and pursue.

- Module 6: Lesson 15 (Research a Career)

- Choose and research a career.

- Write a 2-3 page paper covering the questions in Module 6: Lesson 15 (page 165).

- Previous Career Research and Employment Unit Assessment
(Now used along with the rubric below.)

- Career Research Paper (Rubric)
(This is the assessment that will be the focus of my project.)

3.A.5;3.B.5;3.C.5a; 

3.C.5b;4.A.5a;4.A.5b; 

4.B.5a; 4.B.5c;4.B.5d; 

5.B.5a; 

Interview Preparation

- Compile list of possible interview questions.

- Research summary of prospective company (Rubric)

Contact businesses: 
Evapco
Broom factory
Dave's Pizza
The Candy Kitchen
Greenup Press
IGA 
Mitchell's (Sales and Service)
Police Dept.
Greenup Bank

3A5; 3B5; 3C5b

3A5; 3B5; 3C5b

3A5; 3B5; 3C5b

Interview Preparation

5A5a;5A5b

Follow-up
- Thank you letters
- Post-interview meeting and/or guest speaker

Follow-up
- Rubric for the thank you letter for the interview 
- Suggestions for improvement and for 1st week on the job.

- Thank you letters to community members (for their participation in the unit).

Final Assessment
- Portfolio:  A combination of all steps along the way (Checklist), including a reflection paper on the entire experience. (Rubric)
 

-Possible job shadowing in 2003-2004

2.4B5c

Follow-up
1. 3A5; 3B5; 3C5b

Final Assessment
5B5a
 

In the past I have taught the students how to write a resume and a cover letter.  For their assessment I gave them an objective test and graded their resumes and cover letters without the use of rubrics. This simply was just another unit to them.  They did not internalize it. 

I have never been satisfied with the results of this unit.  I don't feel that it is "real" enough.  These students were going to hit the “real” world in less than a year and needed to realize what the employment process was all about.  Therefore, the purpose of modifying this unit was to make it more "real" for the students.  So, I expanded the unit, bringing in the entire employment process and making it more of a project-based assessment. 

 Last year, I had the students write a resume, a letter of application, a follow-up letter, and a career research paper on any career in which they were interested (in that order).  I graded these individually. Then, the students turned in all of them again at the end of the unit for what I called a “portfolio” grade.

 Obviously, this was weak.  I didn’t know a lot about portfolios at the time.  There were several changes that needed to be made if the students were going to internalize this.

 Now, knowing more about portfolios, I have made some necessary changes.  One change was that of rearranging the order of completion of the different parts of the portfolio assessment. Also, I added several sections to the unit in order to make it more “real” for the students. 

The best change was moving the research paper from the last assignment completed to the first assignment completed.  This gives the students a better idea of the possibilities within their chosen field.  This can help focus them throughout the rest of the employment process.  Other changes made involved not only restructuring but also adding needed sections.  Now, the unit consists of 
· researching a career and writing a paper on it
· reading the want ads
· completing applications (after they obtained them from local businesses)
· writing resumes
· writing letters of application
· sending both the resumes and letters of application
· preparing for an interview
· writing follow-up letters to thank the employer for the interview
· gathering suggestions for interview improvements and for the first week on the job.
· portfolio assessment

Also, the students must also save their portfolio in their network file and place it on a back up disk for future use.
 

Overview of All Assessments Modified

 Since this has changed from a 2-week unit into a semester project, many of the assessments have changed. Since some new sections were added to the unit, assessments for those sections were added.  Those include assessments for the application for employment, the interview, and the reflection papers on the value of each part of the portfolio. While new assessments were added, the existing ones were modified.  Those assessments include the ones for the resume, the letter of application, the follow-up letter, the career research paper, and the portfolio assessment. The modified rubrics cover concepts specific to each activity. 

 Last year, the assessment for all the written material was the same; all mistakes were counted and lumped into one combined grade.  Using this method made it difficult to relate the mistakes to the area needing improvement.  In other words, the results were not pointing to anything specific.

 Now, using the individualized rubrics I have designed, we can identify each student’s areas of weakness and improve upon them.  This allows the focus to be placed on the concepts and the learning outcomes. 

Focus on Career Research Assessment

 This brings me to the focus of my project.  The assessment for the career research paper was in need of some modification.  Last year, it was graded just like every other written assignment already mentioned.  I felt more emphasis should be placed on the content.  So, I started at the beginning – the assignment.  Last year, I simply told the students to research a career in which they were interested and put whatever they thought was important about it in their paper. 

Obviously, these directions were way too vague. So, I started by making the directions more precise, moving from less focused to more focused.  To help the students, I gave them 6 different sections to research.  They were to find 
· information regarding specific jobs that exist now in this vocational area.
· information regarding what skills, education, and/or vocational preparation are required for employment in this vocational area.
· information regarding job growth and/or decline in this vocational area. 
· information regarding other sources of information about this vocational area are available. 
· information regarding where people trained in this vocational area find employment. 
· information regarding what opportunities exist in this vocational field for home-based business or telecommuting.

Adding these specific objectives to the directions resulted in much more specific research papers.  In the end, better directions led to better results.
 As for the assessment of the research paper, I added the use of a specific rubric to
the original assessment of an objective test.  This again, was a movement from less specific to more specific.  As a result, the students are better able to see and understand their individual areas of weakness.  This, in turn, led to better learning outcomes. 

What I Have Learned

 Overall.  After using the specific rubric to grade the research paper, I realized the many changes that took place.  Personally, using the rubric reduces my grading time.  That’s always a plus in any teacher’s book.  As for the students, they were able to focus on the content more.  This led some of them to realize what is expected of them in regards to their chosen career.  As a result of their focus on content, some are even more interested in the field they chose and expressed an interest in continuing their education at a local junior college before hitting the workforce.  That is a big change in attitude.  Before this unit, many of them simply wanted to graduate and start working.  Now, several have expressed a desire to attend college first so they can meet the requirements for advancement in their career field.  This is evidence that the research paid off and the goal of making the unit more “real” for them has been achieved.

 A brief case study proves that this focus on content and unit expansion has been successful.  A boy in my class began the unit with absolutely no idea as to what he was going to do after graduation.  He had no focus and no direction.  It was a joke to him at first, but then it became very real to him and he was honestly worried about his future.  After taking the career assessment on the ECOS Web site and a few days of “surfing the Net”, he began to focus on the area of law enforcement. By the end of the research unit, he handed in his paper and said with conviction and confidence, “Mrs. Catey, I’m going to be a cop!”  He was truly excited about his future, asking about the classes offered at the local junior college. 

 I have learned several different things throughout this project.  First, I will focus on the positive aspects of this unit. 
· The use of individual rubrics was an overwhelming success!  They are much better than the objective test in assessing learner outcome.  It took a long time to create them, but it now takes a lot less time to grade the assignments and projects.
· There was a huge change in the students’ attitude for the most part.  Reality hit them in the face and made them focus on their future.
· This unit is absolutely much more real than it was previously.
· It produced a better learner outcome.
· Judging by student reaction, it is well worth the extra time. 
· This made it much more rewarding for me as a teacher.
· Personally, I learned much more about portfolios through the implementation of this unit.

As we all know, nothing is perfect.  Unfortunately, I have hit some stumbling 
blocks along the way.  These have slowed the progress of the unit.  According to my plans, the unit should be done by now.  However, depending on others has slowed us down quite a bit.  Originally, I had planned to have community businesses take part in the mock interviews.  The kids were excited to continue, yet we have hit a snag in that the local businesses are not as eager to help as I had hoped.  We are stuck now due to a lack of cooperation in the community.  However, I will try again in the beginning of the second semester.  If no one commits after the first two weeks, I will continue the unit, using school personnel for the mock interviews.  While I have learned that this unit takes a lot longer than originally anticipated, I feel it will probably speed up as I get used to using this method.  My time-management will be the key factor in keeping the timing on track.

Future Improvements

 The rubrics have been very successful.  However, like everything else, there is always room for improvement.  For instance, the career research paper rubric is very thorough.  However, I realized after using it, that I forgot to add a section about the salary of the chosen career.  This is an important part of the research; therefore, I will add it for next year.

 As for the portfolio assessment, I will continue to work on that this year and look for ways to improve it until it is time to use it.  Right now, I plan to adapt Jill McCue’s “Student Responses to Biology Portfolio” to my unit.  I am impressed with that reflection form, especially how she included a place for the parents to comment.  There are questions on the form that require parent/student interaction in order to answer them.  I think that is a great way to invite the parents into their son’s or daughter’s education and produces good public relations.

 Hopefully, in the future I will be able to implement job-shadowing.  My current students have a big interest in this, so I will continue to work on setting this up for them. I am trying to set it up as an individual field trip day so the students won’t have to take a prearrange absence in order to participate. Since it is for a class, I feel they should get credit for attendance.  This request will be tough to get approved; however, I will keep trying because I feel this is an excellent way to get an early idea of what a particular job or career is like. 

 Other future additions to the unit could involve technology.  I’m hoping to add applying on-line for a job.  However, there is a big roadblock for this idea.  I must first get emailing permission from the administration.  This, I’m afraid, will never happen because our district is actually tightening up the restrictions within the next few weeks. So, I’m afraid emailing privileges are out of the question.  Another addition that will take place is that the students will possibly do a Power Point presentation at the end of the unit. I feel this would be a good replacement for the objective test which is used as a final test.

 All in all, I am excited about the changes that have been made in this unit.  Also, I am motivate to continue modifying the unit in order to make it more lifelike for my students.