After thinking about a few different avenues I could take
with my action research plan, I decided to land on a portion of the curriculum
I teach in Occupational Career Experience class. The question or “wondering” that I have is, ‘what is the
effectiveness of the vocational curriculum with a focus on interviewing in
regards to a student’s successful obtainment of a job?’ My operational definition is the
results of MISD special education students enrolled in Occupational Career
Experience class in obtaining a job due to interviewing skills taught in the
pre-requisite class, Occupation Preparation. I selected my sample size based on if the student has had
Oc. Prep and is currently in OCE.
The quantitative analysis of my study is a yes or no if student has a
job. The qualitative portion of my
research will be a survey that I will distribute to employer’s who interview my
students for job positions. From
this research, I hope to gain insight as to how we, as a district, can improve
the interviewing portion of our vocational curriculum offered to our special
education students. Please feel
free to leave a comment with any input on how this plan can improve! Thanks!
First of all, I love your super-cute title! Secondly, this sounds like a great project that not many people would think of. Too often we push push push for college ready and we forget that we need to prepare our students to be career ready also. This sounds like a great course your school offers. Do kids have to have a job to be enrolled? How will you account for variables within the job search? For example, what if the kiddos can get hired, but can't get to work on time or get along with the boss and then they are fired? Will they still count as a yes? I have a feeling that all of us are going to figure out that our action plans are much more complicated than we originally set them out to be. (dreading that moment since I know our plates are already so full)
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an excellent project because we rarely evaluate curriculum in such a way, but since reading your plan it seems so obvious that we should. Best of luck to you!
Thank you for liking my cheesy title! Haha. To answer s few of your questions, the students take a pre-requiste course called Oc Prep before they are allowed to enroll in the OCE class. We teach employ-ability skill within that course to get them ready for OCE. We want them to have a job within the first 6 weeks of the course. If they cannot do that, we require them to have a form fill out with at least 10 job lead a week. A job lead could be: filled out a app., went on interview, followed up with potential employer, etc. That must be signed by that employer. Myself and one of our VAC coordinator then conducts evaluations throughout the school year with the employers, so if the student got fired we could ask questions then. We also require the students to give us a copy of their check stub and fill out a weekly work schedule. They then have 3 weeks to find another job. Thank you for your encouragement!! I am trying to get to your blog but for some reason and am having trouble finding the link. If you have time will you attach that! Good luck to you on yours!
DeleteI taught High School for four years at the beginning of my career. I have taught elementary since, but I can see how this could be important to some of our SpEd students, those that will need to be career ready. This could be a very important project for all high schools that have a similar program. Everything we can do to help these students is important.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jeanne! I appreciate the comment and look forward to reading your findings within your project.. Good luck!
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