Teresa Henn, business educator at North Union High School in Ohio, quickly acclimated her students to using the Ohio Career Planning System (OCPS), powered by Kuder when she started teaching in 2004.

I am a new teacher, still learning and developing new lesson plans and practices to incorporate into my classroom. The Kuder system has been a big help this year, and we used it several times during our career development unit. Students were first required to set up an account and then encouraged to explore the site.

First assignment
Students took the Kuder Career Search with Person Match assessment. They then used their results, and chose the top three careers from that list that they felt would be interesting to explore. After researching each career, they had to create a table using Excel®, comparing the three careers and various details like salary, education/skills required, and outlook. This got them thinking about possible job opportunities for our upcoming job shadow week, when students spend all day observing and asking questions they had written beforehand about the job. When they came back to class, they wrote a follow up report, comparing and contrasting what was on the Kuder web site versus the real job. Students like being able to self-explore, work at their own pace, and gather information on their own.

Second assignment
For a college research project, students had to choose three colleges and research information including size, costs, entry and testing requirements, programs offered, fun facts, and statistics. The Kuder system allows the students to research the colleges, save them to their portfolio and then compare them to each other. After comparing each college, students make a choice as to which one fits their needs best and explain why they chose that college. I have them create a PowerPoint® presentation highlighting the details of their research with buttons linking to the university’s web site, images, and other important information.

Students, even the non-college bound ones, find the project meaningful as it allows them to utilize their creativity and personalize it to their own style. The project also allows students to conduct Internet research, and develop PowerPoint and presentation skills.

Applied learning
I had a guest speaker from Marion Tech College in Marion, OH come in to explore college options and look at some of the useful information the Kuder system has to offer. She showed them how to overlap their assessment results, take notes, add to their portfolio, and more. The students seemed to enjoy the engagement and personal aspect of the web site. By having someone from the college come in, it is one more way to show them the many options they have for postsecondary and why this exploration is important.

The students like many features of the system, including the comparisons and saving of favorites. I work with juniors and seniors on this project, and throughout all of the steps, they are mostly interested in the ‘Earnings’ section of their careers. When they took the Super’s Work Values Inventory – revised, one of their highest values, collectively, was income. It’s interesting to hear their reasons as to why income is a top priority, in comparison to job satisfaction or other values.

Looking Ahead
When I did this unit the first time, I gave the students a lot of questions to answer, which were relatively easy to find. Now, I give them small pieces of information, and they have to do more research, analyzing, and interpreting their search results and occupation data. I wanted a more extended, critical thinking response and this is a good way to get them thinking at a higher level. The Kuder system has been a great tool during our career and future planning units and I will continue to utilize it in my classroom!

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