Job Recruitment Simulation

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  CTE Lesson Plan

• CTE Course Info and Benchmark Notes

  
  

  Program Title: Personal Financial Literacy

  Course Title: Personal Financial Literacy

  Course Number: 8500120

  Career Cluster: Finance

  CIP Number 09200104PA

  Standards/Benchmarks:

  02.06 (FOCUS) - Explain the interrelationship of time, effort, and money to achieving personal and family goals.

  03.02 (supporting) - Analyze how career choice affects income.

  03.09 (supporting) - Compare and contrast cost of living expenses in various locations.

• Unit Outline

  
  

  This lesson could be a bridge between a unit on using decision-making processes for personal and family financial choices and a unit on strategies for managing personal and family income. It could also be used in the early stages of a personal financial literacy course as students are considering various careers and how those decisions will affect their life goals.

• Career Connection

  
  

  Students will practice metacognition and personal reflection to determine what is important to them in a job or career. They will apply a decision-making process to solve a dilemma, weighing pros and cons of different choices. They will recognize that many factors, some easily apparent and some that may be hidden, can influence a decision about one’s job or career.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  Students will be able to:

  • Explain the interrelationship of time, effort, and money to achieving personal, professional, and/or family goals.
  • Analyze how career choice can affect one’s income by reviewing different job offers.
  • Evaluate pros and cons of various locations based on different factors, including cost of living, weather, lifestyle, and more.
  • Evaluate ways to make decisions about one’s job or career by examining costs and benefits of different choices.
  • Explain factors beyond income that may influence the way people choose a job or career.

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students should be able to:

  • Apply a decision-making process to choose between multiple options.
  • Consider common factors a person may think about when deciding to accept a job offer, including salary & benefits, location, work hours, advancement opportunities, and more.

• Guiding Questions

  
  
  • What factors are most important when evaluating a job offer?
  • How can accepting a job influence one’s personal, professional, and family goals? How might these goals influence career decisions?

• Procedure

  
  
  1. To introduce the lesson, ask students to spend a few minutes reflecting quietly on the following questions:
     • • What personal goals do you have? Professional goals? Family goals?
       • What factors will impact your ability to achieve these goals?
     • Lead a brief discussion about the importance of having goals, and how one’s goals might influence their personal and professional decisions.
     • Explain that in this lesson, students will participate in a simulation where they must evaluate the impact of a decision on their personal, professional, and family goals.
  2. Introduce students to the first activity by explaining that they will run an online program to simulate a job recruitment. Explain that they will be asked to make a choice about which job offer to accept based on criteria that align best with their own personal, professional, and family goals.
     • Students should have access to individual computers. They will access the job recruitment simulation program by going to https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/820493068/fullscreen/. Instruct them to click on the green flag to begin the simulation and work through it at their own pace, making choices as if they are getting ready to graduate with a degree in a field of their choosing and must find a job.
     • Have students use the attached notes sheet to record information and pros or cons about each position.
  3. Once students have completed the simulation, have them complete the reflections sheet to consider the factors that led them to their decision.
  4. Divide the class into small groups (see teacher notes for suggested grouping). Prompt discussions within each group to allow students to share their reflections and hear from classmates with different perspectives. Groups may use the reflection questions to guide their discussions.
  5. To bring the lesson to a close, ask students to complete an exit ticket responding to one or more of the following questions:
     • How did you prioritize the factors that influenced your decision about which job offer to accept?
       • Look for students to explain how certain factors may have greater influence on their personal, professional, or family goals and how these may carry greater weight in the decision-making process.
     • How are your personal, professional, and/or family goals reflected in your decision about which job offer to accept?
       • Look for students to identify specific factors from the simulation and explain how the choice they made best aligns with their personal, professional, and/or family goals.
     • Many choices come with both benefits and costs. Identify the greatest benefits and costs of the choice you made to accept the job offer in the simulation. What factors could have led you to make a different choice if they were changed?
       • Look for students to identify which benefits carried the most weight in their decision as well as some of the factors that were not ideal for their goals. They should reflect on what it would have required for them to have chosen one of the other job offers. Consider discussing with students that sometimes it may be appropriate to negotiate a more attractive offer with a potential employer.
     • What other questions would you have asked the interviewers or the job recruiter if you had the opportunity?
       • Look for students to come up with additional questions or concerns that align with their personal, professional, or family goals that could help them make a decision such as this.

• Teacher Notes

  
  
  • It is important to note for students that not all career paths will go through a university like in the simulation. Students may find their ideal career path leads through a trade school, certification program, apprenticeship, or simply on-the-job experience instead.
  • Students can stop the simulation by clicking the red octagon (stop sign) at the top left of the screen. Clicking the green flag at the top left will restart the simulation if needed.
    • Note that if students are interested in coding, they can reveal the code for the simulation by exiting from full-screen view (click the inward arrows at the top right of the screen) and then selecting the blue “See inside” button at the top right. This will reveal the programming behind the simulation, including backgrounds, sprites, and block code. You could encourage interested students to remix the project to make any changes they would like to have seen in the simulation.
  • A Teacher Guide for the reflections sheet is included to help guide students as they are filling out their reflections and as a way for teachers to help guide small group discussions.
  • When grouping students for discussion, you have several options, each with certain benefits:
    • Same Choice – Have students break into three groups based on the job offer they selected. Encourage them to compare their thinking and which factors had the greatest influence on their decisions. Did most of the group make the same choice for similar reasons, or did students have a variety of factors that led them to the same job choice? This grouping allows students to explore how others who made the same choice may have approached the process differently, or it could highlight certain factors that the group all weighed more heavily than others.
    • Mix of Choices – Assign students who chose the same job a number 1-3 (or 4 depending on class size). Repeat this for all 3 job offers. Have students divide into small groups based on the number they were assigned, so each group has a mix of students who selected each job. Did students who made different choices have different priorities when making their decisions? Were there certain factors that led different people to different choices? This grouping allows students to explore the variety of factors that influence career decisions and how different people may place different value on the same factors.
    • Both – If time permits, consider using both of these methods. Split the class into similar groups first to compare decision-making processes, then match students from each group with students from the other groups to hear about their decision-making processes.

• Optional

  
  

  Formative Assessment Ideas:

  • Review students’ notes sheets to see that they are considering pros and cons or benefits and costs of different choices.
  • Review students' reflections sheets to assess how they are applying their experience in the simulation to their understanding of factors impacting achievement of personal, professional, and family goals.
  • Monitor small group discussions for indications that students are reflecting on how their goals influenced their decisions.

  Summative Assessment Ideas:

  • Review student exit ticket responses (see Procedures Step 5 for teacher guide).

  Accommodation Suggestions:

  • The simulation includes text-based dialogue. If a student is vision-impaired, consider having an aide or a partner read the text and options aloud.
  • Students will be able to re-play some parts of the simulation text if they need to re-read something. For other parts of the simulation, if the text updates too quickly for students to read, the teacher can “remix” the program under their own Scratch account and modify the amount of time each line of text is shown for. The remixed version can be shared with students based on their needs. A free Scratch account can be established at https://scratch.mit.edu/ and there are many free resources to help teachers learn about using the platform.

  Extension Ideas:

  • Have students identify the factors with the greatest influence on their decision, then research how those factors are influenced by a career field of their choosing.
  • Encourage students to “remix” the code for the simulation by making one of the job offers their “perfect” scenario (within reason). Encourage them to reflect on which factors they would adjust and why.
    • Have students research average cost of living numbers for the United States and calculate how much of the offered salaries will be used for cost of living expenses in each city. As an alternative, you can have them perform these calculations based on the following values from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics for 2021 (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cesan.pdf):
      • Housing = $22,624/yr
      • Food = $8,289/yr
      • Transportation = $10,961/yr
      • Note: “Utilities” is not included in this report, but a reasonable average for students to use could be $3,600/yr for electricity, gas, water, waste, etc…