My Interests

Materials and Resources

Essential Question: What am I interested in? 

Learning Targets:

What do you want students to learn today?

  • Identify personal interests and how those interests lead to careers.

  • Identify how I work with others based on my interests.

Success Criteria:

How will students and teachers know learning targets have been met?

  • I can reflect on my interests.

  • I can explain to others careers that I may be interested in.

  • I can engage in comparing and contrasting conversations about myself and others with similar and different than me.

Core Content Anchor Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.1.D Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6
Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

Essential Skills: communication, critical thinking, teamwork, emotional intelligence, resourcefulness, creative thinking

Standards for Career Ready Practice:

  • Apply appropriate technical skills and academic knowledge.

  • Communicate clearly, effectively, and with reason.

  • Develop an education and career plan aligned with personal goals.

  • Utilize critical thinking to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

  • Act as a responsible citizen in the workplace and the community

  • Work productively in teams while integrating cultural and global competence.

Experience

Launching the learning and making connections to past knowledge.

Time needed for this section: 20 minutes.

Distribute Passion Activities Sheet. Ask students to complete 2-3 activities of their choosing on the provided sheet.

Option: Consider letting students propose a task related to their interests even if it is not written on the activity sheet. 

Share and Debrief: 

  • Which tasks did you choose to complete?

  • Did you enjoy your tasks? Were you successful? 

  • Which RIASEC code do you identify with most?

Expected Student Responses:

  • Creating a rap about the first day of school was easy because I love to listen to rap music.

Discover

Discover something new.

Time needed for this section: 35 minutes.

Have students take RIASEC Inventory. Split students into groups based on RIASEC interests. All Realistic students go to one group, Investigative students go to one group, Artistic students go to one group, Social students go to one group, Enterprising students go to one group, and Conventional students go to one group.

Pass out the appropriate RIASEC Information Sheet for each code. As a group, students learn key information about themselves by reading and annotating the sheet making notes about what they agree with from the theme and what sounds like them. Information about the RIASEC code included on the sheets are:

  • Information about the theme

  • Careers/sectors that connect

  • Majors that connect to codes

  • What does this look like at home, at school, in the workplace?

Have students fill out My Interests Reflection Document with information from the worksheet and their own reflection answering Skills They Have, Majors They are Interested In, and How They Learn.

Distribute the Passion Activities Sheet to each group. This time, as a group, have students complete one of the activities for their theme. After students have completed the activity, lead a group discussion about how it felt to interact with a like-minded group around a task. Possible reflection questions are

  • Was your group successful at the task you were given?

  • Was it easier or more difficult to work with a group than by yourself?

Students should record their reflections about group interactions on their My Interests Reflection Document.

Define

Seeing the new discovering in action.

Time needed for this section: 20 minutes.

Students begin to make connections between interests and careers. Students complete research to define careers that match their interests. 

Direct students explore The O*Net for careers and  information about those careers based on their interests. Students click on their interest area and view a list of occupations. Clicking on the occupations provides details about the career. After students have had time to explore have them list five careers that they are interested in on their My Interests Reflection Document.

Reflect

Applying the information to real life.

Conclude the workshop by asking students the following questions. Answers should be recorded on their My Interests Reflection Document.

  • What do you like doing most? Why?

  • What activity gives you the most energy?

  • What would you keep doing even if you didn’t get paid for it?