UNDERSTANDING:
Students will understand that sustainable employment decisions are made by balancing ideal jobs with real opportunities and making compromises.
Being successful in the job means employing coping strategies learned in the past. (shaded lines do not necessarily mean they are grouped together)
Knowledge
Skills
Reasoning
Define symbol
Create a symbol
Match symbols and meanings
Identify basic job traits for common
jobs
Use symbols to represent or
communicate
Match basic job trait symbols with common jobs
Identify meaning of standard job
trait symbols
Demonstrate an action related to
each job trait symbol
Create a personal job search profile that uses symbols to
illustrate the characteristics of a job I prefer
List basic job skills I have
Demonstrate how a personal
strength can solve a problem
Adjust the personal job search profile until it is flexible
enough to match actual job profiles
List basic preferences I have for a
job
Make choices for oneself
Identify personal strengths that lent themselves to solving
problems in the past
Identify job issues that might come
up
Identify struggles from one’s past
List basic coping mechanisms that I
have or things that make me happy
when I’m upset
Articulate how previous coping mechanisms can be used
for future challenges on the job
Piece of the puzzle
Lesson
Assessment (to prove they know/get it)
Problem we might run
into
How we tackle that
Understand each job
symbol
1
Students can act out the charade associated with
each symbol. Do the same with “degree” so that
the charade is exaggerated by degree when
there are more than one of the same symbol (ex:
three busses means you do the charade for a
long time)
Understand how they
apply to me
1
Students can differentiate their unique set of
symbols from another student’s. They can help
another student choose their symbols and ask
questions about them (for high level). (ex: can
you ride the bus? yes, then please put one bus
on your paper. can you ride two busses? yes,
put another bus on your paper.)
Some students may
struggle with connecting
the symbols to
themselves and see this
just as an exercise that
doesn’t have weight in
reality.
Acting the symbols out
with charades should
help them internalize.
The videos that come
later will also help.
Choose a series of
symbols for myself to
create my job profile
sheet
1
Create a personal profile sheet and be able to act Students are choosing
out the charades associated with it in a large
symbols randomly
group
without internalizing
them.
Look at job options and
how they are coded
2
Students can read a pre-coded job by acting out
its symbols as they read them.
(Dishwasher=heavy work x2, nights, uniform,
touching pork x2)
Compare your profile to
the options
2
Students can hold their profile up to a real job
profile that looks similar to their profile. Teacher
checks each student’s for a match.
Analyze my profile and
make generalizations
about profiles
2
Low level: Ask, “how many jobs matched your
profile? Which one was very close to your
profile? What would you need to change to
make a match?”
High level: Have a more in-depth conversation
about this
Decide if I should change
my profile so that I have a
2
Students say “fix” or “no fix” when you go around This decision doesn’t
the room and ask if anyone wants to change their have much weight or
Acting the symbols out
with charades should
help them internalize.
The videos that come
later will also help.
This requires
conversation in English.
The next section will
ensure students
better chance of getting a
job
profile to have more matches.
careful reasoning behind
it.
understand the weight of
that decision.
Students will likely be
impulsive and say “it’s
easy to change” because
they are willing to “have
any job”
Students have to identify
a problem that will
happen when they
change their profile.
Understand the changes
I’m making and what that
type of job will feel like
2
Students all identify a problem that will happen
when they do change their profile (job difficulty
symbols) (tired back).
Think about a time in my
country when I had to do
something that relates to
one of the job difficulties
symbols (ex: carry the
weight of three heavy job
symbols)
3
All students can match the job difficulty symbols
to a refugee picture that reminds them of their
past life.
Think about the internal
resources that made this
possible in my home
country
3
All students can match the job difficulty with a
coping picture.
Describe which internal
resources will be used in
order to make my
adjusted profile possible
3
Everyone creates a personal solutions sheet and
presents it to the class.
It is a stretch to connect
Personal job profile to
difficulties since there
isn’t a real job assigned
to me yet. I’m guessing
what the difficulties might
be for me.
Do we want to have a
section for nonnegotiables (I will never
touch pork no matter how
much coping I did in the
past)