We identified several teaching tips and resources used by our interviewees or discussed in the research literature suitable for one or more of the stages of employability skills development.
To improve teamwork skills, engineering instructors have experimented with rotating roles for students working on teams. ...
Read MoreNecessary Skills Now (NCN) supports collaboration between educators and employers to improve employability skills in STEM technicians. NCN collects a wide range of resources and makes them available. ...
Read MoreThe National Convergence Technology Center at Collin College (TX) provides a network and a toolkit to support community college STEM technician educators in developing strong involvement with industry partners in both the design and delivery of technician education. The BILT program underscores the importance......
Read MoreTo prepare the mentors who work with interns, a team of postsecondary educators and personnel experts created TRAIN-UP. A four-part course, it builds the mindsets and strategies that increase successful outcomes during internships. Originally created for STEM biomedical research lab technicians, its principles may......
Read MoreThe Academy for College Excellence (ACE) offers trainings and resources to community college educators seeking to support success among at-risk students. The ACE program develops a set of skills that can support success in school and the workplace. It has been used to support......
Read MoreThe Manufacturing Institute provides a full set of the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education’s (FAME) employability skill development resources for both instructors and employers....
Read MoreA list of blog resources. Although mostly technical, some focus on developing lifelong learning skills. BlogLinks From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreSample set of employability skills knowledge cards. AMT Pocket Cards Activity From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreLesson activity providing an overview and practice with tools to support project management. Tools to Aid in Working Productively From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreLesson activity focused on developing interpersonal/teamwork skills with those who differ from you. First Assumptions From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreLesson activity focused on self-reflection on one’s workplace attitude. Includes assessment and videos. Attitude: What’s the Big Deal? From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreProvides graphics that represent the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) approach, including a snappy picture of a worker and a list of core employability skills. The Globally Competitive College Program to Prepare the Globally Competitive Worker From recommendations by interviewees for additional......
Read MoreAn overview of sample course standards for employability skills in a curriculum. Shows alignment with Manufacturing USA employability skills. FAME/AMT Program Alignment to the Manufacturing Competency Model From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skill...
Read MoreAn example of course standards and assessments for employablity skills. Illinois Essential Employability Skills Framework and Self-Assessment From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreProvides the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) example for integrating employabiity skills into a curriculum. AMT Program Professional Behaviors Development Structure From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreProvides overview of the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) approach to developing employability skills in a multi-course, multi-year curriculum. FAME Approach to Developing Employability Skills From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employabili...
Read MoreIndustry approaches to interview questions, onboarding experiences, and rating performance during initial onboarding. These may be used to develop assessments and activities for technician classrooms, internships, and simulated workplaces. Onboarding Interview Materials From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to ...
Read MoreVarious ways to make challenging job interview questions. Checklist for Interviews From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreSample job interview questions to be used to prepare students. VIGOR Interview Questions From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreTemplate to create custom assessment of internship performance. Klein Tools: Job Qualification Standard From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreRubric to assess team performance for IT students. SLO Rubric – Teams From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreRubrics to assess individual reports and discussions. Assignment Rubric Discussion Rubric From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreLinks to surveys that employers can use to evaluate interns. 2014-2015 Computer Information Technology (AS) (POS 2153) Network BAS Internship Employer Evaluation From recommendations by interviewees for additional resources to support faculty in developing curriculum for employability skills....
Read MoreView This website offers access to six different areas of assessment and training materials: job ready assessments, employability skills assessments, pathway assessments, state collaboration assessments, certificate and partner programs, and study guides. Both online and paper-based. Costs vary....
Read MoreView This 50-item instrument measures work attitudes by asking respondents to indicate on a 7-point Likert-type scale how they describe themselves at work. Some of the descriptors used are “dependable”, “stubborn”, “independent”, “accurate”, and “ambitious”....
Read MoreView This 50-minute, 291-item test checks for categories of career interest: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, or Conventional. About $112 per booklet with answer sheet. Key tool for guidance counselors....
Read MoreView This 25-minute, 60-item assessment is administered by paper to groups of secondary students to check on various skills in life management, emotional intelligence, job search skills, transition to work, and career management skills. About $51 for 25 booklets....
Read MoreView This 15-minute 100-item assessment may administered to individuals or groups online. It is a promising assessment intended to measure executive function in children and youths. About $92 manual; $329 per complete online kit for 25; $549 for complete software....
Read MoreView This 15-minute online individual assessment features items designed to measure physical and mental attentiveness. It is good for coaching, but lacks validity for high stakes use. Cost from publisher....
Read MoreView This 15-minute online individual asssessment features 38 items designed to measure insightfulness, verbal expression, assertiveness, listening skills, emotional management. Little interpretation information provided. Cost from publisher....
Read MoreView The peer evaluation tool features 25 items desigend to support team building skill development in high school. It identifies the teamwork skills individuals demonstrate in cooperative learning situations. About $38 for first 10 booklets; $23 for 10 more....
Read MoreView The Mindset Scholars Network offers a variety of research reports illustrating and evaluating classroom methods for improving growth mindset and other other positive approaches to readiness for lifelong learning....
Read MoreView National Center for Women in IT (NCWIT) offers a variety of reports, assessments, and tools related to increasing workplace diversity in IT....
Read MoreDownload This is a field-specific standard from the Texas Skill Standards. It offers a model of how to integrate employability skill standards into a field....
Read MoreDownload This paper by project advisor Diego Navarro shares his findings about how to build team skills....
Read MoreDownload This report offers a set of activities that technician educators can integrate into their programs to support women students’ readiness for the workplace....
Read MoreDownload This report describes factors that lead women to stay in the trades or leave them....
Read MoreDownload This pamphlet provides resume guidance to women seeking jobs in the trades....
Read MoreDownload Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT) offers a range of materials to support women in technician fields....
Read MoreView This website offers links to programs supporting women and girls in technician fields....
Read MoreDownload This slide deck and video presents the NASA approach to building effective teams. From National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2019). Virtual project management challenge. Washington, DC: NASA....
Read MoreView Texas has created skill standards for various fields, and employability skill standards are part of each. You can search this website by field and find the relevant employability skills within the standards for each field. From Texas Workforce Investment Council....
Read MoreDownload A lesson planning template that helps instructors call out specific activities to build employability skills. From Groves, J. B. (2020). Employability skills and their application to project management: Developing the IT workforce. Convocation presentation. Richmond, TX: Wharton County Junior College....
Read MoreDownload An infographic with checklist that employers can use to encourage self-assessment of soft skills From Dude Solutions. (2020). The 5 soft skills operations professionals need to succeed. Cary, NC: Dude Solutions....
Read MoreAuthors recommend techniques such as providing learners with guidelines and/or prompts to list subtasks needed to complete a larger task, the resources and tools needed to complete each subtask, and ways to prioritize each subtask by importance to achieving the goal. They recommend offering......
Read MoreAuthors recommend techniques such as showing examples of excellent work and discussing what elements make it excellent and providing clear guidelines about how product excellence is the goal–not mere “effort.” From Wilson, M., & Gerber, L. E. (2008). How generational theory can improve teaching:......
Read MoreDownload Authors created a self-assessment questionnaire of students’ learning about business fundamentals as part of a simulated business project. This may be used to help instructors and students check learning. From Seethamraju, R. (2011). Enhancing student learning of enterprise integration and business process orientation......
Read MoreDownload Authors created an online environment for students to create and operate an e-commerce website. The project required students to form teams, write a business plan, develop an e-shop, engage in e-shopping on various team platforms, and evaluate each team’s platform. This excerpt from......
Read MoreDownload Authors engaged IT students in both technical and business-oriented tasks, such as discussing financial aspects of a project and selling their solution. As part of this project, the authors required teams to generate project notebooks addressing both technical and business elements. This scoring......
Read MoreAuthors recommend assigning a technical task that requires students from distinct technical courses to coordinate. This involves creating a task for two or more different technical classes and then requiring students to form teams, meet, and coordinate the technical aspects of the work. The......
Read MoreDownload An excerpt from a research article describes the benefits on building future problem solving skills of offering lessons that involve learners in innovating solutions, not just learning procedures. From “Schwartz, D. L., Bransford, J. D., & Sears, D. (2005). Efficiency and innovation in......
Read MoreDownload A survey of 66 graduates of a midwestern IT program indicated that “desire to learn” was a critical skill on the job. From Davis, D. C. (2003). Job titles, tasks, and experiences of information systems and technologies graduates from a Midwestern university. Journal......
Read MoreView A method for customizing the design of learning objectives for individual students, involving the students. An online course link is provided. From University of Colorado, Denver. (2007). Learning contracts: An online tutorial for faculty. Denver, CO: University of Colorado. Retrieved from http://www.ucdenver.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/c...
Read MoreDownload An assessment of one’s readiness to learn in a self-directed manner. From Guglielmo, L. (1977). Development of the self-directed learning readiness scale. University of Georgia. Unpublished doctoral dissertations....
Read MoreView The online course “Working Together: Deaf & Hearing People” is designed to help employers and secondary educators develop the sensitivity and skills to communicate effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing employees. It also can enable deaf and hearing colleagues to work together more productively......
Read MoreView Resources for secondary special and career educators to support deaf students’ career exploration. Included are job descriptions, requirements, typical duties, skills required, expected average annual income, and job outlook....
Read MoreView DeafTEC provides employers and secondary educators with resources that may be used to attract, interview, hire and create an inclusive work environment for deaf and hard-of-hearing secondary-student employees....
Read MoreView This module will help secondary educators work towards improving their capacity to meet federally-required career-technical education (CTE) program quality indicators, especially regarding increased participation in CTE courses of students who are nontraditional by gender. The module helps secondary educators identify root causes of......
Read MoreView The term culture is often used to explain the many external influences that shape who we are and explain our perspectives in the world. However, teachers seldom have the opportunity to learn about the multiple lenses representing the huge diversity of cultures that......
Read MoreView This toolkit is intended to help secondary educators develop mindsets to meet the needs of their students and to implement curriculum that utilizes students’ cultural perspectives and home or community knowledge. In addition, this toolkit asks educators to investigate their own experiences with......
Read MoreView The Inspiring Courage to Excel through Self-Efficacy Toolkit can help secondary educators and counselors learn key tenets of self-efficacy, as well as research-based strategies that can positively affect students’ academic achievement, advancement, and resilience....
Read MoreView The Ensuring Equity in Problem-Based Learning Toolkit assists secondary educators in transforming their Problem- or Project-Based Learning (PBL) practices to ensure every student can be successful....
Read MoreView The Explore STEM Careers Toolkit provides a framework with lesson plans and activities to help secondary counselors, teachers, and administrators to educate and inspire every student to consider a career in STEM. Student activities (with Spanish translations), detailed lesson plans, and vivid infographics......
Read MoreView This toolkit is designed to assist secondary educators in transforming their practice to foster a growth mindset in themselves and their students. Using a growth-mindset approach in teaching is especially effective in developing equitable learning environments that support every student. This toolkit provides......
Read MoreView Through a 5-step process—Organize, Explore, Discover, Select, and Act—Program Improvement Process for Equity (PIPE) engages teams of secondary administrators, teachers, and counselors in examining trends in student data to identify performance gaps, including those related to gender, race, ethnicity, or economic status. Offers......
Read MoreView Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student™ is a high-quality, research-based, educator professional development program to address gender- and culturally-based implicit biases that occur in the secondary classroom and workplace. Developed by the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity Education Foundation....
Read MoreView The Toothpick Factory©-TPF is a hands-on activity that engages secondary learners in a non-threatening simulation so they can focus on teamwork and communication skills. The cost is $40.00 per kit. Each role-playing kit includes materials for 20 participants as follows: Materials for one......
Read MoreView This site provides online access to actual secondary student on-the-job experiences and interviews with men and women who work in different advanced manufacturing careers in Florida describing their jobs....
Read MoreView This site offers engaging classroom materials designed to enrich science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classes. These instructional resources provide secondary students with real world scenarios relevant to STEM and the technician careers in engineering technology. Each lesson plan gives teachers the materials......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Developed for the North Carolina Community College System, this eight-module toolkit is designed to support instruction of high school students to perform high-demand employability skills: Interpersonal/teamwork skills (Mod. 1), Communication skills (Mods. 2 & 6), Adapting to workplace expectations (Mods. 3, 4, 5......
Read MoreDownload Faculty or students may use this rubric to score the quality of presentations. From Ume, C., & Timmerman, M. (1995). Innovative communications oriented design projects in mechatronics courses. IEEE Transactions on Education, 38(3), 223–229....
Read MoreDownload Faculty may use this model to design service learning activities for their technician students. From Tucker, M. L., McCarthy, A. M., Hoxmeier, J. A., & Lenk, M. M. (1998). Community service learning increases communication skills across the business curriculum. Business Communication Quarterly, 61(2),......
Read MoreDownload Faculty can use this model to plan their own expectations for technician students’ learning about communication over time. From Teles, V. M., & de Oliveira, C. E. T. (2003, March). Reviewing the curriculum of software engineering undergraduate courses to incorporate communication and interpersonal......
Read MoreDownload This is a list of technical communication skills needed by engineers. May be adapted to suit technicians. From Selfe, C. L. (1983). Decoding and encoding: A balanced approach to communication skills. Engineering Education, 74(3), 163–64....
Read MoreDownload Faculty may use this model to develop a series of progressively more challenging and work-relevant writing activities across different technical courses in a program. From Roppel, T. A., Hung, J. Y., Wentworth, S. W., & Hodel, A. S. (2000). An interdisciplinary laboratory sequence......
Read MoreDownload Faculty may use this list to develop a set of writing tasks for technical courses. From Pomykalski, J. J. (2006). Constructing integrated writing assignments for the IS curriculum. Journal of Information Systems Education, 17(2), 171–183....
Read MoreDownload Faculty may use this list of topics to design discussion activities about issues in a technical field. From Polack-Wahl, J. A. (2000). It is time to stand up and communicate [computer science courses]. In proceedings in the 30th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference......
Read MoreDownload Faculty or students may use this rubric to score the quality of presentations. From Polack-Wahl, J. A. (2000). It is time to stand up and communicate [computer science courses]. In proceedings in the 30th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference (pp. F1G–16). Piscataway, NJ:......
Read MoreDownload Faculty can use this sample of organizational communication activities to create their own set for work simulation activities. From Jeyaraj, A. (2010). Business process elicitation, modeling, and reengineering: Teaching and learning with simulated environments. Journal of Information Systems Education, 21(2), 253–264....
Read MoreDownload Faculty may find this sample memo a useful model for creating their own communication assignments in workplace simulation actvities. From Gerhard, G. C. (1999). Techniques in a pseudocorporate environment [engineering education]. IEEE Transactions on Education, 42(4), 255–260....
Read MoreDownload Faculty may find this flow chart of industry-relevant communication skills useful for identifying skills for their programs. From Georgopoulos, C. J., & Georgopoulos, V. C. (1984). From university term papers to industry technical reports: An attempt to bridge the existing gap. IEEE Transactions......
Read MoreDownload This tool may be used by faculty or by students to score peers. From “Fries, R., Cross, B., Zhou, J., & Verbais, C. (2017). How student written communication skills benefit during participation in an industry-sponsored civil engineering capstone course. Advances in Engineering Education,......
Read MoreDownload This tool may serve as a model for designing a series of class discussions led by industry visitors. These discussions are intended to engage technical students in current issues in a technical field. A debate activity is recommended for students. From Feldman, J.......
Read MoreDownload This tool may be used by faculty or by students to score peers. From Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. M. (2010). Hard assessment of soft skills. Chemical Journal of Engineering Education, 44(1), 63–64....
Read MoreDownload Tool for technical students or workers to use to self-assess their communication skills. From Decker, A., & Egert, C. A. (2015, October). Is this thing on? Determining comfort level with communication skills in a technical discipline. In proceedings of the 45th Annual Frontiers......
Read MoreDownload A high-level overview of four key steps to creating communication curricula for technical programs From Burge, J. E., Anderson, P. V., Carter, M., Gannod, G. C., & Vouk, M. A. (2012). First Steps Toward Integrating Communication Instruction Throughout Computer Science and Software Engineering......
Read MoreDownload A list that instructors may use and adapt to define communication outcomes for their own technical programs. From Burge, J. E., Anderson, P. V., Carter, M., Gannod, G. C., & Vouk, M. A. (2012). First Steps Toward Integrating Communication Instruction Throughout Computer Science......
Read MoreSeveral questions that technician instructors may use and adapt to their own employers. ...
Read MoreDetailed rubric focused on 13 different features of presentations. ...
Read MoreA list of the various kinds of communication skills needed in IT fields....
Read MoreIn school and work, it is important to clarify that success in any career depends on being perceived as adapting flexibly to workplace expectations. For students, discuss how developing such adaptability in school builds habits that can transfer to the workplace. Besides providing examples through......
Read MoreNapier & Johnson (2007) lists questionnaire items adapted from Feller (1996) to measure teamwork expectations and satisfaction....
Read MoreSchlimmer et al. (1994) offers a Team Selection and Evaluation Form that covers areas of task skills, work habits, work attitudes, and relational skills....
Read MorePimmel (2003) provides a simple survey that can be used by team members to evaluate team progress, effectiveness, and problems each week....
Read MoreDunaway (2019) describes scale items used to evaluate Team Emotional Intelligence, including Awareness of Own Emotions, Management of Own Emotions, Awareness of Others’ Emotions, and Management of Others’ Emotions....
Read MoreDunphy & Whisenand (2006) describe the Wuzzle Picture Puzzle exercise, in which students solve a series of information-coded anagrams on their own and then again with a diverse team....
Read MoreOakley et al. (2007) lists 7 useful teamwork survey questions....
Read MoreMantri et al. (2008) outlines a peer rating scheme with 5 levels....
Read MoreKruck & Teer (2019) specify 5 elements of a team contract....
Read MoreThe Peer Evaluation Form in de Ramírez et al. (1998, p. 16) prompts employees to list their peers and describe their effort on a scale from 0 to 3 where 3=Excellent job, 2=Did his/her share, 1=We had to force him/her to work, and 0=Did not work at all....
Read MoreNapier & Johnson (2007, p. 42) describes a Peer Rating Approach to Distribute $10,000....
Read MoreNapier & Johnson (2007) outline a model of how expectations of teamwork, demographic diversity, and collaborative behavior impact team satisfaction....
Read MorePimmel (2003) lists main elements for team training, including: team roles, team development, members' responsibilities, operating strategies, cooperation codes, and meeting guidelines....
Read MoreTable 1 of Pimmel (2003) lists essential aspects of cooperative learning as defined by Richard Felder and his colleagues, including: positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, use of interpersonal/teamwork skills, and regular self assessment of team. Learn more about these elements in Pimmel, R.......
Read MoreA set of pre-publication draft chapters from an upcoming book by project advisor Dr. Will Tyson of the University of South Florida. These chapters are full of the kinds of real-world reactions that secondary educators are likely to hear from students, employers, and fellow......
Read MoreWebinar: Targeted Coaching Skills for Instructors Preparing a Diverse Technician Workforce Wednesday, February 26, 1-2 pm EDT Webinar Archive Recording (video) Slides (PDF) Abstract Are you ready to teach Generation Z—the most diverse generation to enter U.S. higher education and the workforce in history? Are......
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