NJCCCS Handout

Career Education and Consumer, Family and Life Skills
Core Curriculum Content Standards:

Summary of NJ CCCS 9.1 and 9.2:
All students will develop career awareness and leadership skills and hone their personal and interpersonal relationships. Students will learn to prepare for family and business relationships both financially, emotionally, and learn to make ethical and safe life choices.

Career and Technical Education
CCCS 9.1: All Students Will Develop Career Awareness and Planning, Employability Skills and Foundational Knowledge Necessary for Success in the Workplace.

Big Ideas:
· Explore different career opportunities that are necessary in order to make appropriate career and educational choices.
· Develop an understanding of why people work as well as what positive work habits look like.
· Acquire the means to create a resume, conduct themselves on interviews, demonstrate problem-solving skills and recognize how working cooperatively is a pertinent job skill that is transferable from one career to another.
· Participate in real life experiences which range from filling out job applications to working through specific job related problems with a group of students who have a similar interest in the same vocation.

Consumer, Family and Life Skills
CCCS 9.2: All Students Will Demonstrate Critical Life Skills in Order to be Functional Members of Society.

Big Ideas:
Understand how to identify problems in the workplace, home, and school, and map out reasonable steps to solve those problems ethically and appropriately.
Identify ways to improve personal growth and development in order to enhance both business and family relationships.
Understand how the economy can affect business and family life.
Make responsible money choices and create financial plans by participating in related activities.
Develop original thoughts and ideas and learn how to think creatively about solving a problem.

Strengths of Standards 9.1 and 9.2:
Ideas in the standards are important for all students to understand in order to experience success socially in the workplace and in family relationships.
Could be translated into meaningful curriculum writing because some culminating activities are laid out specifically.
Examples:
Designing, implanting and critiquing financial plans
Filling out job applications
Designing a resume
Learning how to interview
Lend themselves to meaningful, hands-on activities which help to ensure the transfer of knowledge and connect students understanding to the “big picture.”
Promote cooperative activities which emphasize good social skills, ethics, and critical thinking.
Offer “out of the box” learners more innovative ways to become skilled at real world situations.

Weaknesses of Standards 9.1 and 9.2:
Unclear how and where these standards would be addressed.
A. some of the ideas from the standards should be addressed across all subject area
B. a portion of the standards seem likely to occur in more of a vocational setting then in a public school setting
Two standards should not be separate because the ideas that are in both should be intertwined into all subject areas.
Language in the standards is much too vague for effective curriculum development.
Example: What are “appropriate work habits?”
What are “ethical behaviors?”
The desired outcomes from the standards are unclear.
Example: What is a “functional member of society?”

What can you as an administrator do to facilitate the learning of these standards?
Make all staff members aware of the portions of these standards that address and look for teachers who promote:
a. critical thinking
b. decision making
c. dealing with conflict
d. working cooperatively
e. making ethical decisions
f. developing self-awareness
g. creating a sense of self worth
Encourage teachers in all subject areas to use rubrics to assess these skills during group work, projects, or culminating activities.

References:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/pn/fd/documents/careertechstnd.pdf
http://education.state.nj.us/ccs/?_standard_matrix;c=9
http://www.ntuaft.com/njccs/Webpage/contents/STANDARD%209%Intro.htm
http://www.casel.org/downloads/CE%20in%20CCCS-Summary%20Chart1.pdf
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129533.pdf