I don’t get the chance to do career planning with every student, but I do offer it as an option for small groups. I know that there a ton of online career exploration programs, but sometimes, it is nice to have a student workbook. Rick Trow’s Career Game is just that.
Here is a look inside at some of the pages.
I used this with several small groups of 7th graders, and 5th graders. I will also be doing this soon with my some 6th grade groups. I just had kids sign up out of study hall and they came down to my room to work on this for several sessions. It was great to have them think about those things in their lives that could give them insight into a potential career. In one of the spaces, the book asks the kids to think about their room, and how the posters, decorations, and books they have can offer clues to careers they might enjoy. It was interesting to hear everyone describe (in great detail) what they had in their room. The workbook also ask questions about the things a student enjoys, what they do well, what makes them proud, favorite places and the people they admire. I definitely learned a lot about each student.
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In addition to the workbook there are optional web tickets
that accompany the book so that kids can go online and
create a personal web page that matches their workbook
results to actual careers, with information about each
job possibility that includes educational requirements, earnings, etc. It was pretty cool when one of the boys said, “I really like legos, and my color is orange (which points to engineering careers). Maybe I will be a master lego builder one day, or maybe I’ll be a lego engineer.” Our seventh graders do a career research unit in Family and Careers class and use online career sites. The interest inventory there is much longer and the kids can seem overwhelmed. This entire book can be done in one period, and if you want to spend more time looking at different careers online with the web ticket add-on, you can. The nicest thing about The Career Game, is that when the kids are done, the booklet can be sent home for parents to discuss with their children.
This video describes it well.
As special offer to my followers, Rick has agreed to send free web tickets along with any workbook orders that reference this blog. If you want to take advantage of this offer, just pay for workbooks only on your online, fax, phone or mail-in order, and reference The Middle School Counselor anywhere on the order to get the web ticket add-on sent to you at no extra cost.
The videos and demos at: www.careergame.com describe
the entire process along with FAQs and costs.
Do you have a great career resource? Let me know. Leave a comment below or join one of the groups below:
