Life/Career Abilities

Student behaviors, often called soft skills, is the learning domain that significantly contributes to student career readiness and leads to future job success. Efforts to teach “behaviors” frequently lead to frustration and disappointment, not because they can’t be developed, but because objectives are vague or teachers often approach “teaching” this important domain of student learning in a traditional mode. Career and Technical Education instruction is a great place for students to demonstrate and improve these behaviors. The three key strategies for developing student behaviors are;

Define — Begin with the End in Mind,
Measure — Measure What Matters, and
Develop —Nurturing Student Development of Life/Career Abilities.

This section of the website is designed to share best practices and resources for schools and teachers to be intentional and systematic in developing positive student behaviors, which we prefer to call Life/Career competencies.

The slide deck, Life/Career Abilities - Overview provides useful visuals to assist in presentations.

Define

The white paper Life/Career Abilities Framework: Begin with the End in Mind helps educators define a list of life/career behaviors that can be readily observed. To develop Life/Career abilities, schools should follow the “begin with the end in mind” approach and be consistent in essential behaviors.

Measure

The white paper Data Practices for Developing Life Career Abilities: Measure What Matters -- is an introduction to one of the keys in developing Life/Career Abilities (soft skills and non-cognitive skills). Schools cannot fully improve practices in facilitating student’s development of these skills until staff begins to quantify and measure these essential behaviors.

One of the powerful ways to both measure and develop life/career abilities is through the use of multi-level rubrics for agreed-upon behaviors that students should develop. Successful Practices has developed rubrics for nearly 100 important personal, work, and career-related behaviors. These behaviors and rubrics are available in an online database in which educators can browse and download a rubric they wish to use. Explore the Life/Career Competencies Rubrics. Here is a link to a demonstration video on using the database.

Sample rubrics show how these selected performances could be used for student feedback tools on behaviors. First is one sample aligned with Career Ready Practices, another aligns with CDOS Credential, and another sample with typical Social-Emotional Skills.

There are also several commercial workplace readiness student assessments which include many of the life/career abilities. Listed are some of the most frequently used. These are only for information purposes and educators are encouraged to review them and select any that are appropriate to their needs.

The NYS Education Department has done a comparison of these assessments as part of the options for students to earn a CDOS credential.

Develop

Life/career abilities cannot and should not be taught or tested in the same manner we handle other subjects. This presents a challenge but we must not ignore this domain because it is difficult to measure with traditional tools. Life/career abilities can be taught, but not in the traditional way. Begin to use a nurturer mental model to evoke the parental role in developing a child’s behavior. Using a nurturing approach is one way to define the teaching practices needed to develop students’ life/career abilities. The white paper Nurturing Student Development of Life/Career Abilities describes a framework for teachers to use in developing life/career competencies.

There are several curriculum and instructional programs both free and available for purchase that schools might consider in developing a system-wide approach to developing life/career competencies. This listing should not be considered an endorsement of any of these products. These links are provided for information only. If teachers are familiar with other resources to share, please contact the CTE TAC to encourage adding suggestions to this list.

Applied Educational Systems (AES)provides a digital career readiness curriculum to help you teach career skills to middle and high school students. Some of the most popular topics include professionalism, communication, digital literacy, and career exploration. The curriculum includes hands-on activities, teacher presentations, digital lessons, projects, and assessments.
Bring Your A-Game to Work — The Center for Work Ethic Development is helping organizations and individuals build work ethic by developing curriculum, certification, and support materials. Founded by author and speaker Eric Chester, The Center for Work Ethic Development is focused on the research and advancement of work ethic.
Career Prepped is a free service in the ACTE online professional learning portal New York CTE Learn from MaxKnowledge, it includes online learning and documentation of employability skills for career success.
Career Solutions Publishing — Career Solutions Publishing offers work readiness curriculums that focus on the soft skills employers identify as essential for winning a job and being promoted. Job Ready Career Skills, It’s for Real Workplace Ethics, Competitive Advantage, Career Launcher and Managing Your Money contain practical, appealing student content, and The Teacher’s Desktop that accompanies all online programs provides many teacher-friendly features to reduce the teacher’s time commitment.
CTECS - Workplace Readiness Skills Modules -- The multistate consortia CTECS has assembled free instructional modules and links to resources for 22 workplace skills that align with their Workplace Readiness Skills Assessment.
Edge FactorEdge Factor —Factor for Education is an online platform with engaging videos that includes inspiring stories and accompanying, turnkey resources to help schools showcase the relevancy and importance of CTE, describing career pathways, local employment opportunities, and instill soft skills.
Human eSources offers its AchieveWORKS® suite of self-assessments to help students explore careers matched to a student’s personality, skills, and intelligence.
Excellence Through Ethics - Junior Achievement has many excellent curriculum resources including these supplemental resources in ethics, finance, customer service, and leadership.
IMAGO is an innovative company focused on career exploration, life skills, and mindset. It offers a learning platform including 10 Life Skill lessons rooted in soft skills and over 200 video-based lessons on emotional Intelligence & workplace engagement.
Growing Leaders — Led by Dr. Tim Elmore, author, and international speaker, Growing Leaders addresses practical life and leadership skills to young adults that will help them navigate through life. Products include several publications, videos, and online course materials.
NecessarySkillsNow — This joint project by CORD, CSSIA, SCATE, and FLATE has assembled excellent resources for teaching Life/Career Abilities and developed a postsecondary module for integrating technical and employability skills in cybersecurity and manufacturing.
MBA Resources —MBA Research offers a curriculum in business and marketing. Several of their learning modules related to Life/Career Abilities, especially in leadership and ethics. Many of learning modules are developed through foundation funds and are available free to educators.
Novoresume – This is an online resume builder to create functional and eye-catching resumes to maximize being invited for job interviews. Their website and blog provide useful tips on soft skills, resume building, and job search.
PowerSkills for Success - a collection of free instructional resources shared by the NYC Work Experience Coordinators Association (WECA)
RealityWorks has two instructional programs around 18 leadership and 20 employability soft skills including hands-on, activity-based experiences including student workbooks, instructor guides, scenario cards, and presentation slides.
RethinkEd provides strategies to administrators, educators, students, parents, and caregivers to support effective, high-quality education of the whole child. Rethink Ed’s evidence-based, technology-driven solutions in Social and Emotional Learning, Behavior Management, and Special Education.
Skills Pay the Bills – A free publication from the US Dept. of Labor targeting youth 14-21.
Skills You Need — The Skills You Need website is authored in Great Britain and has a number of articles and self-assessments on life/career abilities. While they do sell some publications, the website offers a great deal of free information.
Soft Skills for the Workplace — Goodheart-Willcox publishes a text to teach basic employability skills. Fourteen short, concise lessons provide information that can be integrated into any program. A free companion website provides additional activities for reinforcement. The book is also cross-referenced to Career Ready Practices.
Soft Skills High programs are specifically designed for high schools to meet the growing challenge of incorporating career readiness skills and certification into the curriculum. Aligned with the employability traits framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the Career & Life Essentials (CLE) course is designed to bridge the gap between today’s high school educators and tomorrow’s employers to ensure that students are prepared to successfully enter the workforce, college, career, and life.
The Career Readiness Curriculum (CRC) — SkillsUSA's student-oriented career program includes personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics. This curriculum includes 29 lesson plans based on Common Core State Standards. It infuses 21st-century skills into student engagement activities. The Career Readiness Curriculum is a free member benefit as part of SkillsUSA professional membership dues.
Today's Class — Today’s Class is an interactive online learning system for secondary schools, career centers, and technical colleges. In addition to several technical content areas, Today’s Class offers Workplace Readiness courses. The concepts covered include interpersonal skills, work ethic, reading and writing skills, and math used in everyday situations such as measuring distances or counting money.
Virginia Workplace Readiness — The state of Virginia has a model of workplace readiness, developed extensive advocacy and instructional resources around workplace readiness and make available a workplace readiness assessment.
Voyage — Voyage from Thrive Academics is an online program that guides high school students through the stages of college and career readiness while developing essential life skills needed for thriving in life. The fully animated, web-based program offers dynamic lessons in five modules that will teach students personal development, career planning, college planning, financial responsibility, and everyday living.
Workplace Readiness — Conover Company, for over 35+ years Conover has developed many assessment and training programs which includes comprehensive management systems to track user progress and results. Topics include workforce development, soft skills, bullying, and social-emotional learning.