Mohicans On The Move, Author:Lisa G. Hoffman, Grade Level:11-12, Subject Area:Business Education, - The goal of this unit is to survey high school alumni to assess their career choices and the work skills they use on the job. Once the responses are received and analyzed, students will draw conclusions as to which work skills are the most common among a variety of careers.

Author: Lisa G. Hoffman

Subject Area: Business Education

Grade Level: 11-12

School Address: Mohawk High School

28 Grove Street

Mohawk, NY 13407

School Phone: (315) 866-2620

FAX: (315) 867-2909

WRITTEN OVERVIEW

This unit is designed to be utilized in a 20 week Business Computer Applications class composed of juniors and seniors. Keyboarding I or the equivalent is a required prerequisite. The unit also incorporates skills learned in Marketing, Keyboarding II, Public Speaking, and English classes; although these classes are not mandatory prerequisites.

The goal of this unit is to survey high school alumni to assess their career choices and the work skills they use on the job. Once the responses are received and analyzed, students will draw conclusions as to which work skills are the most common among a variety of careers. The most popular work skills will be matched with the high school class that teaches that skill. In addition, students will compile a list of work skills that are not taught and propose ideas for new classes.

Students begin by preparing a career survey as a class group. The survey must list the major career clusters and specific work skills. Ideally, the survey can be organized into a bubble sheet format so responses can be easily scanned and tabulated. In addition, a comment section at the conclusion of the survey can be utilized to catalog miscellaneous information. Each student may want to prepare a section of the survey, or you may choose to have students work in groups.

Once the survey is complete, students will prepare a business letter to accompany the survey. Depending on the size of your school and class, you may choose to have students work in groups of two or three. The target audience for this unit is alumni who graduated at least five years prior. You may choose to target only one year, or depending on the number of estimated alumni two or three years. Ideally, a postage paid, pre-addressed envelope should accompany the business letter and career survey. Your class may also choose to select the best letter and post it on your school’s web page, so responses can be garnered electronically.

While students are waiting for responses you may use this time to teach the mechanics of a data base or power point slide, depending on student skill levels. In addition, public speaking and report formatting techniques may be reviewed.

Once the responses are received, students will catalog the results into a database and create database reports to summarize the information. Students will prepare a typed report highlighting their findings and conclusions, incorporating graphics and database reports. Students will then utilize their typed reports to prepare an oral presentation using power point slides as visuals. The oral presentation will highlight the survey results and propose conclusions and curriculum suggestions. The audience for the oral presentation may be the Faculty, Administration, and the Board of Education.

CONNECTIONS TO STANDARDS

English Language Arts, Standard 1: Language For Information & Understanding

Students will listen, speak, read and write for information and understanding…

Benchmark

Creation of survey and business letter to alumni.

Creation of a written report summarizing results.

Creation of an oral presentation utilizing power point slides.

Math, Science, and Technology, Standard 5: Technology

Students will apply technological knowledge and skills to design, construct, use and evaluate products and systems…

Benchmarck

Creation of a database to record and catalog survey responses.

Creation of a power point slide to accompany an oral presentation.

Career Development and Occupational Studies, Standard 1: Career Development

Students will be knowledgeable about the world of work, explore career options, and relate personal skills, aptitudes, and abilities to future career decisions.

Benchmark

Students will learn about different careers and work skills by creating a career survey and examining alumni responses.

Career Development and Occupational Studies, Standard 3a: Universal Foundation Skills

Students will demonstrate mastery of the foundation skills and competencies essential for success in the workplace.

Benchmark

Students will utilize written and oral communication skills, integration of technology to solve problems, math skills, and team work to create a typed report and oral presentation.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Which career clusters are the most popular among MHS alumni?

Which work skills are the most common to a variety of career clusters?

Which courses provide the work skills that are the most common?

How can MHS improve its curriculum to teach the most common work skills?

What technology is required to teach these essential work skills?

UNIT TYPE: Project Based Unit

INITIATING ACTIVITY

Students will examine their likes, dislikes, work skills, aptitudes and abilities in an attempt to predict their career ten years from graduation. They will also predict the careers of their classmates. Answers will be placed in a time capsule to be opened at their ten year class reunion. This session will encourage students to brainstorm careers and attempt to match skills, aptitudes, abilities and likes with potential careers.

LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Students will use written communication skills to create a career survey, business letter, and typed summary report. The report will include a title page, outline, and bibliography.

Students will implement technology (database, word processing, power point) to acquire data and organize answers.

Students will use public speaking skills to present their findings and conclusions to the Faculty, Administration and Board of Education.

CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Declarative

Constructing a Survey

Business Letter Format

Database Construction

Database Reports: utilization of sort, arrange, formula and report options…

Typed Reports: Format of title pages, outlines, internal citations, bibliographies…

Oral Presentation Skills

Powerpoint Slides: construction, manipulation…

Procedural

Construct a career survey to gather data on work skills, career choices,

classes…

Construct a persuasive letter enticing alumni to respond to the career survey

Organize survey responses into a database

Arrange, sort, and use formula options to create database

reports summarizing results

Create a typed report summarizing results of the survey and

student conclusions; incorporating database reports and graphics

Create an oral presentation to present findings and conclusions

utilizing powerpoint slides as visuals

CULMINATING PERFORMANCE

Create a typed report incorporating graphics and database reports summarizing the results of the career/work skills survey.

Present your findings and conclusions orally with powerpoint visuals to the Faculty, Administration and Board of Education at MHS.

INTEGRATION ISSUES:

CURRICULUM MAP

Mohicans On The Move

Content Area

Career/Work Skills Survey & Business Letter Typed Summary Report

Creation of Database Oral Presentation Skills

Creation of Database Reports Creation of Powerpoint Slides

LEARNING EXPERIENCES

DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE

What declarative knowledge should students be in the process of acquiring & integrating? As a result of the unit, the student will know or understand…

Career Survey and Business Letter:

Construction of a work skills/career survey using standard survey methodology. Construction of a business letter using a standard format.

Database

Creation of field names, cell entry, sorting, arranging, formulas and generating reports

Powerpoint Slides

Creation of a power point slides and slide show.

Public Speaking

Mechanics of public speaking: timing, voice, diction, body language…

What experiences/activities will be used to help students acquire/integrate this knowledge?

Handouts, examples of surveys, guidelines for question formation, model business letters
Handouts, examples of databases, construction of simple address database using alumni information
Visuals, examples of powerpoint slides and slide shows

Handouts on mechanics of construction

Mini-oral presentations,

What strategies will be used to help students construct meaning, organize and/or store the knowledge:

Physical and pictographic representation of information
Vocabulary terms, physical and pictographic representation of information
Note-taking strategies, physical and pictographic representations
Note-taking and videos

Describe what will be done.

Students will identify career clusters and work skills. Students will identify the sections of a career survey and business letter; and describe strategies for writing a persuasive letter.
Students will identify the sections of a database and then create a database from a given set of data. Students will sort and arrange the data to create a summary report.
Students will identify the steps used to create a power point slide.
Students will examine speeches and develop a list of do’s and don’ts.

PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE

What procedural knowledge will students be in the process of acquiring & integrating? As a result of the unit, students will be able to:

Create a survey with an attached business letter.
Create a database to organize survey responses.
Create a written report using database reports incorporate graphics to summarize information and conclusions.
Create an oral presentation using accompanying powerpoint slides.

What will be done to help students construct models, shape and internalize the knowledge?

Model letters and surveys, handouts of examples; brainstorming
Guidelines for database construction; modeling common errors and problems
Report format guidelines; chart student progress; establish deadlines for progress
Practice the presentation

Describe what will be done.

Students create a career/work skills survey and business letter; mail to alumni.
Read, sort, and catalog alumni responses into a database.
Sort, organize database to create database reports to be included in the typed report.
Develop power point slides to accompany oral presentation.

LEARNING EXPERIENCES

EXTENDING AND REFINING

What knowledge will students be extending and refining? Specifically, they will be extending and refining their understanding of…

Business Letters, Surveys, Databases, Career Occupations, Work Skills, Powerpoint, Written and Oral Communication Skills

What reasoning process will they be using?

Comparing, Classifying, Inductive and Deductive Reasoning, Error Analysis

Describe what will be done?

Classify occupations into career clusters, identify work skills, record survey responses into categories, create database reports to summarize information

BLUEPRINT FOR

PERFORMANCE TASK VIGNETTE

Title of Task: Create a career survey and business letter

Grade Level(s): 11-12

Curriculum Areas: Business Education

Time Frame: 1 week

Developed by: Lisa G. Hoffman

Resource Materials: Word, Powerpoint, database software, sample surveys and business letters; videos of public speakers, and speech guidelines.

LEARNER OUTCOMES/CONTENT/

STANDARDS/BENCHMARKS

Business

Students will use proper format to construct a work skill/career survey.
Survey results will be entered into a database and organized into database reports.
An oral presentation using powerpoint slides will highlight project results and conclusions.

Technology

Utilization of Microsoft Word to type survey and letter.
Use of database software to organize responses.
Use of powerpoint to create an oral presentation and word to format a typed report.

Written and Oral Communication Skills

1. Students will write to persuade alumni to respond to the letter.

Students will write to organize a database and create informative reports.
Students will speak to inform their audience.

Description of task using a prompt format: (FATP) form, audience, topic, purpose

You will design a survey to gather information about work skills and career occupations of Mohawk Central School alumni. You will also design a business letter to accompany the survey. The business letter must persuade alumni to respond to the survey. Remember--their responses will be entered into a database, sorted, and arranged into reports. The results of the reports will be presented to the Board of Education, Faculty and Administration using accompanying powerpoint slides.

Student products/performances

Typed career survey Database construction Typed report and

Typed business letter oral presentation

highlighting

project results

using Powerpoint

Criteria for evaluating student product/performances

identifies specific work logical organization & organized, infor-

skills and career clusters structure mative; explains

results of suvey

persuasive & entices identifies field names & engaging; grabs

reader to respond and records reader and

audience

attention

uses standard english reports are accurate & oral presentation

punctuation, spelling, complete uses powerpoint

grammar, vocabulary slides to convey

results via graphs

charts…

questions are clear, uses standard english effective oral

concise and the survey punctuation, spelling communication

can be answered easily grammar, vocabulary skills: volume,

diction, tone…

RUBRIC

Element #1 Element #2 Element #3 Element #4

Scale creation of a creation of a written report oral presenta-

survey & letter database & with graphics tion & power-

database reports summarizing point slides

results summarizing

results

Weights 25% 25% 25% 25%

4 letter clearly database is report facts presentation

states purpose logical & are correct; is interesting

& entices reader organized; is attractively & informative;

response; sorted & presented; uses 7-9 power-

concise, clearly arranged; contains point slides; conveys

worded survey; provides multiple results; captures

zero errors & meaningful graphics; no & maintains audience attractively statistics errors attention

presented

3 letter states database has report facts presentation

purpose & asks too many are correct; is interesting

reader to field names; is attractively & informative;

respond; concise, sorted presented; uses 4-6 power-

survey; few incorrectly; contains point slides errors; statistical many to convey results;

clean, neat results are graphics; captures & maintains presentation misleading few errors audience attention

2 purpose not database has report facts presentation

clearly stated; too few are incorrect; is informative;

survey field names; is unattractively uses 1-3

questions are presented presented; powerpoint

confusing; incorrectly; contains slides to convey

unappealing statistical few graphics; results; captures

presentation; results are many & maintains audience some errors inaccurate errors attention

1 no purpose database is report facts presentation

stated; survey not organized are incorrect; is incomplete;

questions are by field names unattractively uses 0

inaccurate & sorted or presented; powerpoint

confusing; arranged; no contains slides to convey

sloppy statistical no graphics; results; audience

presentation; results multiple uninterested

multiple errors errors

CONSTRUCTING A HOLISTIC SCORING TOOL

(Rubric or Activity Specific Key)

Score Point 4 Score Point 3

persuasive letter; survey is concise & letter and survey are error free, but

error free not attention getting

database reports are concise, error free database reports are concise, error free,

& attractively organized but not attractively organized

typed report is factually correct; uses typed report is factually correct; uses

correct format, standard grammar; is standard grammar, contains minor

error free, informative & interesting errors & is informative

oral presentation contains 7-9 power- oral presentation contains 4-6 power

point slides, is engaging and informative point slides, is interesting & informative

Score Point 2 Score Point 1

letter & survey are organized, but letter and survey are unorganized &

contain 1-5 errors contain 6 or more errors

database reports are concise, but database reports are inaccurate,

contain 1-5 errors unorganized & contain 6 or more errors

typed report is somewhat factually typed report is unorganized, incomplete

correct; use standard format & grammar contains 6 or more format & grammar

but contains 1-5 errors errors

oral presentation contains 1-3 power- oral presentation contains 0 power

point slides, and is informative point slides and is incomplete

INSTRUCTION MODIFICATIONS

Support services from Special Education Teachers and Computer Lab Assistants will be provided to those students that need to be accommodated or assisted. Additional cooperative groups may be utilized for peer assistance.

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THESE YET?

Learn to Learn Skills:

Use of database, word processing, and powerpoint technology

Mechanics of public speaking

Format for a typed report, survey, and business letter

Assessment Modifications:

Use only one segment as a learning experience.

Eliminate one segment to shorten the required time.

Survey teachers and staff instead of the alumni.

Post the survey and one letter on your web site.

Use E-mail to send your letters and survey to alumni.

Unit Schedule/Time Plan:

Career survey and business letter 1 week

Database construction and creation of database reports 5 weeks

Typed Reports including graphics… 1.5 weeks

Powerpoint presentation 3 weeks

Oral presentation practice and polish 1 week

Links:

A learning experience entitled Business Letter is derived from this unit, and also posted, be sure to preview it.