Reflections
on Life and Careers: An Introductory Graduate Course
Cheryl
Honkomp, Kathryn Jones, and Casey Schultz
EDAC
634
October
25, 2013
Introduction
During
high school, some students have the opportunity to participate in a course
called “Orientation to Life and Careers.” This class encourages them to explore
the realm of possibility outside of high school. It can be a great preparatory
tool for students who may have no idea what to expect of the career world. But
what about people on a different end of that spectrum? Those that have gone on
to college, careers, and a family but are thinking of returning to school for
graduate work. These students are facing a daunting task and they too could use
some help not only with preparing for the next step, but reflecting on past
experiences. “Reflections on Life and Careers” is an introductory course that
utilizes narrative learning and is designed specifically for these students.
During this eight-week course, students will have the opportunity to reflect
upon the experiences they have had in life since graduating college. They will
be encouraged to think critically about how these experiences have played a
part in shaping the professional and person they are today. Students will share
these experiences with others in addition to listening to the experiences of
the other students in the course. Through this course, students will gain
confidence in their experiences, a deeper understanding of how these
professional and personal experiences have shaped their lives, and will learn
from the experiences of their peers. Additionally, this course will act as a
way to ease students back into a classroom setting complete with written and
oral assignments as well as classroom discussion. Whether students have been in
the career force for a few months, or many years, they can all benefit from
taking this course and sharing their narratives with others.
Rationale
The main goal of the “Reflections on
Life and Careers” course is to utilize narrative learning to help professionals
preparing to continue their education ease back into an educational environment
as well as boosting their confidence and arming them with a portfolio of
experiences on which they have critically reflected. Students should also be
able to recognize their positions within future narratives and adjust their
behaviors within them as needed. Clark (2010) mentions three main ways that
students learn through stories, and those three ways will be the backbone of
this course.
1. “We
learn from telling stories” (Clark, 2010, p.6).
Students in the
“Reflections on Life and Careers” course will be asked to prepare a narrative
for each class period. This narrative will be a written account (minimum of one
page in length) of answers to prompts provided by the instructor. These written
narratives will allow students a way to organize their thoughts on a specific
occurrence (or occurrences) within their professional or personal life and
begin the process for critical reflections on these events.
2. “We
learn from hearing stories” (Clark, 2010, p.5).
The majority of class
time will be spent in open discussions of the narratives that students prepared
for that particular class period. In addition to these open discussions,
students will have the opportunity to interview a fellow professional who has
recently returned to school about their experiences and challenges that they
have faced. The instructor will be on hand to act as a mediator to intervene if
the discussion gets too far off topic or to facilitate new discussion points to
reignite the conversations should there be a lull. When students have the
opportunity to hear from their peers, it can open up new ways for them to process
their own experiences. The different perspectives of classmates are a great way
to learn new coping mechanisms as well as ways to avoid making the same
mistakes that other have in the past.
3. “We
learn from stories by recognizing the narratives in which we are positioned”
(Clark, 2010, p.6)
This particular feature
of narrative learning will not be as obviously included in the content of this
course, but more apparent in the lives of the students after they finish the
course. Hopefully, upon reaching completion of the course, students will feel
more comfortable recognizing narratives as they arise. An evaluation
administered at the conclusion of the course will ask students if they feel
that this is the case. If not, adjustments may need to be made to the framework
of the course to help future students understand more clearly the purpose of
narrative learning and the goals of this course in particular.
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|
Objective
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In
Class activity
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Writing
prompts for next week discussion
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Week
1
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Introduction and discussion
of course objectives
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Each student will
write a brief bio and share or listen with the intent of highlighting diverse
life experiences
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What do you
expect to learn about yourself during this course?
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Week
2
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To
reflect upon personal strengths and weaknesses
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Small
group discussion on personal strengths that you anticipate will help you
adjust to school. Discussion of
weaknesses you will need to improve upon to do well in this course.
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Prepare for next week’s class a description of a
professional experience of which you are especially proud. What has been your
most negative professional experience? In what ways have these experiences
shaped you as a professional?
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Week
3
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To
critically reflect on how professional experiences have shaped lives by sharing experiences
with other students
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Discuss
what constitutes a professional experience.
Break
into small groups and share, as well as listen to, individual professional
experiences.
Turn
in writing prompt
|
Prepare for next
week's class a narrative describing the most important training, classes, or
other development programs you have participated in since graduating college.
Why do these instances in particular stick out in your mind?
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Week
4
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To
critically reflect on educational, training, or developmental experiences
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Discuss
formal training vs non-formal educational experiences. Small group discussion of training, classes
or other development programs
Turn
in writing prompt
|
Prepare for next week's class a narrative discussing the difficulties
associated with balancing family and your career. What experiences, tips, etc. have helped you
overcome these difficulties?
|
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Week
5
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To
recognize a support system or lack of support system and how resilient we are
in adjusting to create a balance
|
Watch
StoryCorp and discuss the support system needed for Josh and the hurdles to
overcome. Small group discussion on
balancing family/ career/schooling, expectations, fears to overcome, and other
hurdles to a successful experience.
Turn
in writing prompt
|
Prepare for next week's class by looking back on your
college education and professional career, what advice would you give to
yourself at age 18? Are there experiences in your life that you wish you
could alter? Begin thinking about
successful professionals you know and respect for the interview process.
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Week
6
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To
identify events in our life where the outcome would have been different than
the outcome we have
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Small
group discussions on things we would have done differently.
Turn
in writing prompt
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Interview someone who has recently returned to school. What
were their biggest challenges? In what type of learning environment do they
feel they strive? Have they taken courses in multiple formats (online,
on-campus, hybrid, etc.)? What tips do they have for a professional returning
to school?
|
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Week
7
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To
learn from other professional’s experiences
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Large
group discussion (share and listen) of professionals interviewed and the tips
that resonated with you.
Turn
in interview paper
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Prepare
for next week’s class a final report
highlighting the story that influenced them the most from another student,
and the written exercise where they discovered the most about
themselves.
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Week
8
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To
pull all aspects of the learning experience
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Final report of
how the student can use their personal stories and stories of others to help
them with the transition to returning to school
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Complete the
course evaluation
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This
course will reflect the positive aspects and improve upon the negative aspects
of a similar introductory nursing course that was evaluated by Ironside (2003).
In that particular course, the strengths seemed to lie in the openness of the
professor to the suggestions of students in discussion and the combination of
written and oral narratives. “Reflections on Life and Careers” will have a very
open format for discussion that will allow students to express their opinions
even if they happen to take the discussion off course of the original plans
from the syllabus. The nursing course evaluated by Ironside (2003) allowed the
students to provide the main points of discussion for each class period. This
helps students to feel more involved in the learning process as well as more
open to sharing their personal stories if they are able to choose the topics.
When it comes to evaluating the course, “Reflections on Life and Careers” hopes
to expand on the negative results from the introductory nursing course discussed
by Ironside (2003). That course incorporated a ranking system on the evaluation
that lead to conflicting results with the interviews that were administered to
students after the course was completed. “Reflections on Life and Careers” will
have an evaluation that includes open-ended discussion questions that will
allow students to incorporate their narratives rather than ranking areas on a
scale of one to five. Hopefully, this will lead to more comprehensive
evaluations that provide specific areas of weakness that need to be addressed
for future sections of this course.
I commented on the program design for groups 1 and 5!
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