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Plan B Program: Career Exploration and Planning
Plan B Program: Career Exploration and Planning
Frank Thornton
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IU 1: The Learners, their Environment, and the Instructional Goal
The Plan B Program: Career Exploration and Planning
OVERVIEW
Children that live in communities that have an inadequate educational system have tremendous barriers
for success, particularly for employment. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz stated that “When you live in a
poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have to have poor schools. When you have
poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When
you get a poor education, you are destined to be a poor man and a poor woman the rest of your life.”
(Cleveland, 2010) Today, this cycle endures in communities around the country.
BACKGROUND
In under-performing schools, the terms “at-risk” and “disadvantaged” have been used interchangeably
to describe the student population in general and more specifically their performance. Many of these
schools suffer from a myriad of socioeconomic issues that range from decentralization and expansion
to the outer suburbs, a dwindling tax base, limited civic involvement, underdevelopment, mediocre
leadership, and an eroded value of education through negative peer pressure. In Dekalb County
Georgia, which is in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, the graduation rate is 78%. The overall
graduation rate for the state of Georgia in 2008 was 75.4% (Georgia Department of Education, 2008).
What happens to the students that did not graduate? How do we address their needs and bring them into
the new economy. My proposed approach is to reach them middle school, when they still believe that
they have possibilities for the future. The Plan B program is a career exploration and planning
roadmap for “at-risk” students that provides practical activities and skills for the youth to identify areas
of interest for a future career or trade.
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The learning context for the Plan B Program will be at school in the computer lab, which will be
accessed by the student learners during their Extended Learning Time (ELT). The Plan B Program will
have a maximum of 25 student learners per training cycle. The learning environment will be online
where instruction is delivered asynchronously. The computer lab will be equipped with a computer
baseline of a 2 GHz processor that has at least 2 Gigs of RAM. The computer will be accompanied with
a 19” LCD Monitor that has internal speakers.
The Computer Lab Instructor will be available to provide assistance with verifying network
connectivity, internet access, and that essential hardware is functional. The student participants will be
able to access the Plan B Program instructional materials from home with a computer that has
Microsoft Windows XP SP3 and high-speed internet access. To access the program from home, the
student learner must have DSL/CABLE level speed access to have the best multimedia experience.
The following are the technical skill prerequisites to participate in the Plan B Program; the student
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learner must have basic computing skills in the areas of browsing on the internet and utilizing Web 2.0
applications. The student learner should be able to perform topic searches on a search engine;
competently perform word processing; and utilize the web cam and sound recorder applications. The
technology tools that they will be utilizing for the session will be Google Chrome, Google, Microsoft
Word, Powerpoint, Moodle Learning Management System, and Dim Dim.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
The audience for the Plan B Program will be eighth grade male students in the state of Georgia that are
receiving free or reduced lunch and eligible to receive Supplemental Educational Services through the
No Child Left Behind Program. This demographic illustrates that the student has been identified for
support services by their previous testing scores for the state of Georgia Criterion Referenced
Competency Test (CRCT). The CRCT is administered annually in grades one through eight. The
testing scores for grades three, five, and eight are promotional.
The student learners were chosen because they are on the margin of success. They are capable of
producing better outcomes with their work, but they have to be motivated, competitive, and given real
world application to their learning. The student learners need to have goals in order to build towards
knowledge construction. Today, they are just getting by and doing the bare minimum required and not
reaching their full potential. On their current course of mediocrity, the reality of a positive future for
many of these student learners will be limited, especially if they do not identify and develop their
talents and abilities. It is essential that they continue to matriculate through the educational process
with a purpose. The eight graders in the intended audience will benefit from the program by pondering
introspectively about what their aspirations are for the future and researching the options to achieve
their desired goal.
OVERARCHING INSTRUCTIONAL GOAL
The instructional goal of the Plan B Program is to provide student learners with the knowledge, skills,
and tools, to perform career exploration research and develop a basic career plan.
SPECIFIC GOAL
After completion of the program, the students will be able to describe what their primary field of
interest is and demonstrate the capacity to build a revisable plan to reach their intended career goal.
TARGET AUDIENCE SURVEY
The specific goal of the proposed instructional unit was presented to two students of Champion Theme
Middle School as a sample of the intended target audience. The students stated that they attend school
because it is required of them. The students interviewed did not have insight into their preparation for a
career in the future. The following are questions that were posed to the students.
Have you started to think about your future after high school?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Do you know the requirements to be admitted in a college, trade school, or training program?
How much do you think it will cost for you to attend college?
Do you know what it takes to earn the HOPE academic scholarship?
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INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
• The student will perform a self examination and a two generation analysis of family work
history and chart the correlation between highest grade or degree earned and career/job status.
• The student will be able to identify the requirements for admission of their suggested
• The student will be able to define a job skill or talent, and research traditional and non-
traditional career paths and trades for the 21st century.
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES
Sub Goal 1 – Preliminary Work
Objective 1.1 - The student will identify three potential careers or trades they are interested in and rank
them in order highest interest to lowest interest.
Objective 1.2 - The student will complete an online survey of their current skills.
Objective 1.3 – The student learner will interview a family member that has received training or
education in their career field.
Sub Goal 2 – Career Exploration and Planning
Objective 2.1 – The student learner will research human resource and workforce development web
sites.
Objective 2.2 - The student will perform a Google search of the knowledge, skills, and abilities
required for his top career interest. The students will find three job announcements and bookmark their
website locations.
Objective 2.3 – The student will research and review the admission requirements and costs of the
educational or training program for their primary career interest.
Objective 2.4 – The students will perform a Google search for a professional organization or union
associated with their anticipated career field.
Objective 2.5 - The student will compile the information from the lesson and complete templates for
career planning and seeking a virtual mentor.
SUMMARY
The IU of the Plan B Program is designed to provide 8th grade male students with exposure to the
career development process. Successful completion of the Plan B Program training will provide the
student learner with the ability to create a basic career roadmap for the future. The expectation of the
instructional designer is that the student learners will chart a plan for the next five year period, which
should lead them to graduation from high school. The instructional approach of the IU will provide
students with the tools, skills, and practical experience in an asynchronous environment. The
combination of activities, assignments, and practice will build the skills towards reaching the
overarching instructional goal, which can be revisited by the student learner in the future to modify and
adapt their plan.
http://www.frankthornton.info/UTB/PlanB_IU1.pdf
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The Plan B Program: Career Exploration and Planning
References
Cleveland, G. (2010). Malcolm X and School Choice
Retrieved from http://pileusblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/malcolm-x-and-school-choice/
Georgia Department of Education (2008). The GaDOE Source DEC 2008 Issue
Retrieved from
http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/DMGetDocument.aspx/December%2008.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F61841
9AB0A7801DA8E7B11D50FD3F05EAD2DFB7C1F86F9F92&Type=D
