Hello my name is Blaire Willson Toso and I would like to welcome you to the first virtual conference being offered by the Pennsylvania Career Pathways project, a leadership project through the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Division of Adult Education. We are offering 9 webinars in this first conference. Some of you may be registered for all 9, while some of you may just be registered for this one. We are delighted to have you join us for one or all of them. If you are interested in registering for more you can still register on the PA Adult Ed resources website. Professional Development System 1
Thank you for joining me for this session, Employability Skills: Using Foundation Skills Framework Checklists with ESL Learners. This session is focused on developing employability skills using several tools on the PA Adult Ed Resources website. Professional Development System 2
My name is Blaire Willson Toso and I will be the presenter for this session. I work at the Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy and at the Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy at Penn State and provide leadership to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Division of Adult Education s Workforce Development Liaison project. I started out as an adult ESL educator, and like many of us, have worked in a variety of aspects of the profession. Currently I work on this project and a variety of other research, evaluation, and professional development projects. I would like to thank everyone present for taking time to participate in this webinar. Professional Development System 3
Today I will overview briefly the PA Adult Education Resource website as this is where all the tools I talk about on this webinar can be found. Then we will look at the Foundation Skills Framework, examine the skills, competencies, and indicators and the look at how some activities can incorporate these employability skills. We will look at another set of checklists, the Career Information Checklists, their levels and some activities that can accompany them. Professional Development System 4
All these tools can be found on the Pa Adult Education Resources Website under the Workforce and Career Pathways Tab. Professional Development System 5
You will get the drop down menu. I will focus on the Career Coaching, where the Career Information Checklists are found, and the Foundation Skills Framework. Professional Development System 6
The Foundation Skills Framework was developed with workforce development partners and other stakeholders such as employers. They identified key skills that students will need to get jobs and keep jobs. The framework also provided a common language for everyone to use in understanding employability skills and creating lessons and curriculum for our students. I would also like to point out that the Foundation Skills Framework has been crosswalked to the College and Career Readiness Standards so that you can be assured that what you are doing is aligned to the CCR Standards. As you know Pennsylvania has been working on this initiative for 3 years and this way we know that what we are doing in the classroom for employability and career exploration is also working towards that goal. Professional Development System 7
The Foundation Skills Framework is generally represented as a wheel. Here I have chosen to use the list form as it clearly shows the skill categories and the competencies. There are four Competency areas: Basic Workplace Skills, Basic Workplace Knowledge, Basic Employability Skills, and Lifelong Learning Skills. Each of these has competencies under them, such as Listens with Understanding or Works with Organizational Structures and Culture, Demonstrates Self-Management Strategies, and Works in Teams. Each of these Skills Categories are related to different phases of employment. The Basic Workplace Skills is for exploring and looking for a job; Basic Workplace Knowledge are skills needed to keep a job; Basic Employability Skills are skills for advancing in a job, and Lifelong Learning Skills, well those are general skills needed for everyday life. Skills that might be needed in any situation, more like functional skills. Professional Development System 8
Each Competency has a series of indicators which allow teachers, case managers, students, or anyone else interested in identifying key components of each competency. These lists offer examples of key skills that you may want to include into your curriculum or that can be targeted for lessons and classroom activities, or career pathways discussions. They are also a useful tool for students. They can identify skills they would like to hone, or they can chart progress using the Skills Self- Appraisal Checklist. Currently, for individual student use the language on the available tools are most likely for intermediate and above language learners; however, the concepts can be easily reduced and reworked to be appropriate for lower level English language learners as well. For example, Demonstrates attentiveness through nonverbal or verbal behaviors can be rewritten: I show people I am listening. If this is the goal then students and teachers can teach and appraise with very little language. We are hoping to rewrite the checklists so that there is an ESL version available. Professional Development System 9
We have several tools available that offer suggestions or guidance in how you might want to use the Foundation Skills Framework in your program. The Foundation Skills Competency List is where you can find all the information in a central document. In particular you can find the detailed lists of competencies and indicators such as the information you saw on the previous slide. The Self-Appraisal is a tool that students can use to learn more about their own skills and set learning goals. We will look more closely at these later in this presentation. The Program Checklist is a program-assessment tool which can be used for programs to determine what competencies and skills they are addressing and those that might need more attention. It is also an excellent tool to help guide curriculum and lesson development as it offers a list of employer identified skills that are important for getting, keeping, and advancing in a job. The Skills Rubric offers guidance and detailed suggestions for understanding or assessing students strengths and needs regarding employability skills. Professional Development System 10
The Exploring Work-Based Skills in the ABLE Classroom offers activities that can be used in the classroom. While these are not ESL lessons, you may want to explore this guide as many of the activities can be reworked so that they are suitable for language learners. Professional Development System 10
Let s take a closer look at a couple of these resources and how you might use them for ESL programming or activities. First we will look more closely at the Foundation Skills Program Checklist Professional Development System 11
You can see that the checklist addresses the Skills and Competencies, as opposed to the more detailed indicators. This tool can be used by individual teachers, program administrators, career coaches, or any other involved staff. However, we suggest that if done individually, everyone come together to discuss what they have identified as strengths and needs. Often, you will have a better understanding as a team of what you are doing as a whole. For example, one teacher may have developed a unit on decision making which can be shared with the rest of the team so that they too can incorporate that into their work or build and reinforce what the teacher has been doing. In this way you can lighten the load as you continue planning to incorporate employability skills into your curriculum, lessons, and services. If you are just getting started on working employability skills into your curriculum, this tool can help you create a cohesive plan by choosing a few areas that you want to spend your energy and focus. Professional Development System 12
Let s look at how these skills and competencies can be built into a lesson or lesson unit. I am going to use a unit that has been developed by my friend and colleague Heide Wrigley. She has created several workplace problem solving scenarios which support communication skills, critical thinking, and problem solving. They are all originated from real life issues that she has collected as she has worked with teachers, employers, and students. You can find this scenarios and other resources and information on her website Literacywork International. They are all free. This scenario addresses multiple issues that can be encountered on the job: How to balance personal life with work life; how to differentiate between speaking to supervisors and customers from friends; How to understand a schedule; How to solve a problem that allows one to keep a job. Each unit contains picture series (with and without text); dialogues, story, vocabulary and grammar activities, graphic organizers, logic and mapping tools, reading and writing activities, and comprehension activities. I will focus on a couple of activities for each foundation skills framework. Professional Development System 13
Here I have chosen four skills to target: Speaks clearly and concisely, demonstrates self-management strategies, solves problems, works in an organizational structure and culture. I chose these skills because I know that oral communication is very important for all language learners, is one of the most important factors for getting and keeping a job. The other 3 skills are also highly desired by employers and demonstrate that a learner understands the workplace culture. I also chose the organizational structure skill as this can be viewed differently by different cultures. As adult learners transition into the workplace, it is important for them to understand the structure of a job. I also know that these skills can be addressed in this lesson. Professional Development System 14
Before we go further, take a moment to skim the story. Professional Development System 15
Notice that discuss the story has students think through the problem of the story with indicators about expectations and other hints about the structure of Victoria s job (Pointing to the watch). The story map helps students organize their thoughts, structure the story, and also lead to discussion about how the job is structured. The choices and Consequences activity addresses problem solving and addresses self management. Lastly the finish the story asks students to think critically and creatively for a resolution to the story. I would add an activity, ask students to present their story so that they have the opportunity to practice the language needed on the job and how to speak clearly and concisely Professional Development System 16
Let s revisit my chosen skills: Speaks clearly and concisely, demonstrates selfmanagement strategies, solves problems, works in an organizational structure and culture. As you can see, I added an extra activity to work on the speaking clearly and concisely, so that I could address my four targeted skills. In order to truly meet this skill, I would probably need students to give feedback and rework presentations. There are some great activities for this such as countdown. Students must give their presentation to different students in s reduced time frames. First they have 2 minutes, then 1.5 minutes, and then 1 minute. Any questions or thoughts? Professional Development System 17
Now we ll look at the self appraisal. Here is the self appraisal list. Students use this list to self-assess. For ESL students I would recreate this form to have many fewer items (maybe just choose the items you are going to target) and possibly revise the four categories. This is easily done to meet the level of your student. Notice that I have chosen two that relate to the targets that I identified for me as a teacher for my class activity. You can see how these then align with the activity that I talked about in the previous slide. This ensures that both student and teacher goals are aligned. It also allows you to offer students the skill of self assessment a key feature of the US workplace, taking stock of one s performance and reporting it to your supervisor or in a job interview. A self assessment of this kind, is also a good tool for you to understand if your students think that they are achieving some of the same goals that you have set for them not only are your goals aligned but so are your understanding of the progress of the student. If you think the student s self assessment is weaker than yours, then you can address that directly with the student, or offer chances for them to practice and internalize their progress. Professional Development System 18
Another feature that I could choose that aligns with my goals is understanding the structure. Here I have chosen to focus on the reading. In these first two panes the student can explore and determine what is a basic structure of Victoria s job. But first you must determine lunchtime. So between 11 and 11:30 jobs are to be stocked, after that she must turn her full attention to the customers. Professional Development System 19
Here is an added activity that makes this more explicit and asks students to really explore what the manager is telling her. This is a useful tool for students to use as it is a skill that they can transfer to any setting. Identifying key information and the rationale. Professional Development System 20
If you would like to get more detailed, you can have students or you to breakdown the skills into a more refined understanding of each skill. You can use this to begin to hone students skills by digging into the details, such as determining the audience (i.e., there is a difference between talking to a friend, a boss, and a customer) which goes along with the level of formality needed. Such as the use of gonna, or how to more precisely respond rather than pointing and saying over there - Students can assess whether they feel as though they addressed these indicators although in their current form, it would be very difficult except for very high level students, such as skilled immigrants who have had formal educational background. Professional Development System 21
Here I created a simpler I can do checklist that a student can use that translates to the higher level concepts in the checklist. Professional Development System 22
Before we go further do you have questions, or ideas. Have any of you used these checklists or anything like them? Professional Development System 23
Now we will look at another tool that is not par to fthe Foundation Skills Framework, The Career Information Checklist, also available on the Pa Adult Ed Resource Site. These are available for student use to track career exploration, career awareness, and workforce preparation activities. Each list is leveled, with Career Information Checklist I designed for students in Beginning ABE/ESL classes. Each level has more complex activities, with Career Information Checklist IV designed for Adult Secondary Education students. The activities identified on each checklist are examples that can be modified or customized for program use. Some of the language may be overly complex on the checklists, especially 3 & 4 for many of our language learners. However, Agencies, instructors, and students can use these to track completion of activities. The checklists can also be used to demonstrate collaboration and coordination of services with other regional programs and partners. Professional Development System 24
Here is checklist Level 1. These lists can help guide instruction and provide ideas to incorporate career exploration and employability skills into your classroom activities or curriculum. This list is broken into 3 categories: career exploration; entering a pathway (skills that will support one in getting a job) and advancing on a pathway the focus on keeping a job. Take a moment to scan this list. Professional Development System 25
As you can see the second level is more detailed, addresses an advancement in the skill and importantnly for us to tecognize for our students, if they are going to use them on their own, that the language difficulty also increases. Take a moment to scan this list as well. Any questions befor we proceed? Professional Development System 26
Using the same scenario, I have chosen some key skills that are supported in this lesson. You will notice that they also tie into the Foundation Skills Framework skills. These tools can be used together to help drive a coherent and deeper understanding and reinforcement of employability skills as you work on students language development and career exploration. Notice here, I have highlighted teamwork. Almost any employer will tell you that they can teach the particular skills of a job; they want teamwork, language ability, and initiative. You will notice that I also decided not to work on the career exploration; this lesson could incorporate some of those items if I developed activities to meet that; however, I chose to remain with the items that I originally identified as key skills for my students. Professional Development System 27
Here I added an activity that low level students would be able to complete. Also notice that there is room for students to brainstorm additional duties that might come into play for Victoria s job. Professional Development System 28
How else do you think you might use these checklists. Professional Development System 29
Before I go I just wanted to mention a few more employability resources. I noted that there are other Scenarios Professional Development System 30
Also these are a few of my favorites. I find the Minnesota Literacy Council and the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center (they developed the ESOL Toolkit) especially rich and useful. Professional Development System 31
Here are two upcoming events. Skilled Immigrants Webinar series. It will begin on February 8. An announcement will be coming out this week. We are also going to have an online anytime on demand module for ESL Basics that covers Second Language Acquisition and lesson planning. These are fabulous modules that have been created by LINCS and we are going to add some activities that will make it more robust. Thank you do you have any questions, comments, feedback. Thank you very much for joining us on this webinar. You may feel free to contact me off line as well. My email is at the beginning of this presentation. Professional Development System 32