A Kuder Best Practice
By: Erica Ciucci, M.Ed., GCDF
School-To-Careers/Career Counselor
Fort Johnson Middle School, Charleston, SC

The newly adopted Education and Economic Development Act (EEDA, 2005) is designed to give South Carolina students the educational tools they need to build successful futures. Data has shown a significant gap between students’ preparation and the requirements of the real-world that leave many students unable to find good jobs and many businesses unable to find skilled employees. The EEDA set up Personal Pathways to Success to help students and businesses meet these challenges by combining high academic standards with enhanced opportunities to explore career options and build workplace skills.

Under the new EEDA legislation, every eighth grader must select a career cluster to explore in high school, and every eighth grader begins to develop an Individual Graduation Plan (a plan that contains high school graduation requirements, core and elective courses and aligned with a career cluster, career major, and postsecondary plans), with guidance from a school counselor and parents.

The South Carolina College & Career Planning System, powered by Kuder, has played a valuable role in preparing eighth grade students at Fort Johnson Middle School to make sound decisions regarding their Individual Graduation Plans (IGPs) and has assisted tremendously with the transition between middle and high school, by allowing them to create and develop a professional portfolio. Student portfolio entries include results from the Kuder Career Search with Person Match, Business Letter, Job Application, Expository Essay, Resume, and IGP, all developed through individual workshops delivered in eighth grade English Language Arts classes.

Using the Kuder system from the very start of the school year, eighth graders took the system’s assessments, identifying their interests and skills and determining their top career clusters. Students were then allowed to explore and research their favorite cluster areas learning about the various pathways within the clusters and the careers associated with each pathway.

In this time of accountability, classroom instruction time is precious, and in order for students to devote time to career exploration and portfolio development, each proceeding portfolio workshop had to reinforce the curriculum standards. It was determined that each portfolio entry could easily be aligned with English/Language Arts (ELA) standards and learning competencies, and the workshops could follow the instructional calendar for the eighth grade ELA classes.

After using the Kuder system to explore careers from their top career clusters, the students’ next workshop was business letter writing, in which they had to research a local business within their top career cluster area and compose a letter seeking a job shadow opportunity. Following business letter writing, students participated in a workshop on job applications and interviewing skills.

Then, using the system as a research tool, the next workshop focused on expository essays around career choices. Students were allotted class time to use the computer labs to access their Kuder accounts and review their assessments as well as research their top career clusters. After the research time, students were able to compile a comprehensive expository essay explaining the career they would like to pursue in the future, including specific details from their research supporting their ideas.

The resume writing workshop followed, and students were able to utilize the Kuder system as a resume writing tool to develop a scholastic and professional resume to add to their portfolios. Finally, the students’ IGPs were included in their portfolios. IGPs are based upon the students’ career clusters, but include all high school graduation requirements, extended learning activities, and postsecondary goals.

After researching and exploring careers using the Kuder system for the various portfolio workshops, students were better prepared to select a career cluster of study for high school. They were able to use the system to view sample courses of study for high school within their clusters and pathways which helped them understand what would be expected of them in high school and beyond to prepare to enter into their preferred fields.

The Kuder system has been a tremendous asset to my students in implementing the Education and Economic Development Act into my school. It has provided the framework we need in order to fulfill the requirements while effectively preparing students for future success.

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