ECE Career Path Part 3: Career Plan

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  CTE Lesson Plan

• CTE Course Info and Benchmark Notes

  
  

  Course Title:

  Early Childhood Education 4

  Course Number:

  8405140

  Career Cluster:

  Education and Training

  CIP Number:

  0419070913

  Course Type:

  Career Preparatory

  Standards or Benchmarks:

  Focus

  41.02

  Develop a personal career plan that includes goals, objectives, and strategies

  38.02

  Articulate professional goals (i.e. value, vision and passion).

• Unit Outline

  
  

  This is the third in a series of four lessons that fall within a unit on effective employability skills and requirements in early childhood education. The unit will focus on identifying a career and planning goals to achieve said career path. Prior to this lesson, students will have researched early childhood education career paths and identified industry certifications and/or degrees required in lessons one and two. After completing a career plan in part three, students will identify career related resources and agencies for professional development in part four.

• Career Connection

  
  

  This lesson includes the skills of career planning, specifically related to early childhood education, as well as goal setting and a reflection on goal setting strategies.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  Students will be able to:

  • Articulate a career plan related to early childhood education
  • Set three goals toward achieving their stated career plan
  • List objectives and resources to be used in meeting the three goals
  • Evaluate their goals and strategies

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students should be familiar with:

  • Career options in the field of early childhood education, including certification/degree and skill/knowledge requirements.
  • Developing S.M.A.R.T goals and objectives

• Guiding Questions

  
  
  • What goals do I need to achieve in order to meet my chosen career path?
  • How can I meet those goals?
  • What resources can I use to meet those goals?
  • How useful is my career plan to my future decision making?
  • How can creating a plan and organizing goals be an effective strategy to manage stress and expectations?

• Procedure

  
  
  1. To introduce the lesson, ask students, "What would make a career rewarding for you?" Share with the students a story of a career path related to early childhood education that was rewarding to the individual. This might be the path you took in order to teach early childhood education, a story from someone you know, or a fictional person, as exemplified below.
     • Taylor enjoys teaching and learning with young children and has exceptional organizational and management skills. This led Taylor to become the director at a local childcare center. Taylor has to develop and maintain a program that follows health and safety standards, hires responsible and credentialed staff, and meets daily curriculum needs and standards. In order to accomplish these goals, Taylor had to graduate high school, earn a Staff Credential, take the introductory Child Care Training from the Department of Children and Families, earn a Director’s Credential and take specialized in-service training related to children with disabilities. Taylor finds it rewarding to use organizational skills in such a way that many families and children benefit from the well-run program.
  2. Provide students with the Career Plan Goal Sheet handout attachment. Use the Guided Plan Power Point (see attachment) as desired. Students should utilize any previous research and information they have gathered pertaining to early childhood education career paths. Provide students with time to describe within the first box what their career plan is. This should be the overall vision that they have for their future career and is not limited to the title of the career. For example, “I want to be a fun, first grade teacher that focuses on parent engagement and is a leader within my school.”
  3. Next, have students think about three goals that they will need to meet in order to achieve their stated career plan. Goals should be some general milestones that are important to the student's desired career path. Remind students to consider industry certifications or degree requirements as potential goals.
  4. Then, have students identify two or three specific and measurable objectives that they can work towards in order to succeed in reaching each goal. Share the requirements of a S.M.A.R.T. goal objective by sharing the information on the Guided Plan PowerPoint.
  5. Last, have students think about what might be helpful to them in order to meet their goal objectives. As a class, have students share their objectives and brainstorm different resources together. Resources might include financial aid, scholarships, mentors, internet research, college advisor, podcasts, and so forth. Write these on chart paper or the white board for reference.
  6. To bring the lesson to a close, ask students to reflect on their goals and objectives. Use the guiding questions from the Guided Plan Power Point or begin a class discussion on the manageability of objectives that the students wrote. Have students modify, alter, or add objectives as they see fit.
     • Focus discussion on the purpose of goal setting and creating a plan to set realistic expectations. Ask students questions such as, "How does creating a plan help manage stress?" and, "How does goal setting help create realistic expectations?"
     • Ask students to take a highlighter and highlight one or two objectives that they can start working on now, as a high school student.

• Teacher Notes

  
  
  • Students can be grouped or paired according to different career path areas in order to brainstorm and provide feedback to each other.

• Optional

  
  

  Extension Ideas:

  • Allow students time to research more specifically the resources that they identified. For example, financial aid opportunities for different careers or colleges with certain degree programs.