I have been trying to get into the middle school classrooms for some time now but because of conflicts in schedule we have been unable to coordinate. Tomorrow will mark the first day of middle school guidance and I am very excited! The eighth graders will start exploring careers through O*Net, which is a short assessment where students answer questions about skills or interests that they currently have and it helps match them with careers that take different levels of education to be hired or successful. The prezi for the students can be found by pressing the button below. Students were asked to pick three careers that they were interested in learning more about from the jobs that matched their interest set. They had to fill out a worksheet that listed the job responsibilities, skills needed, the knowledge needed, average annual salary, and education requirements for each of these three jobs. The students really seemed to enjoy the activity! Walking through the hallway throughout the day and the next you could hear the students asking each other what careers they had gotten or disclosing the careers they were excited about. The eighth graders will have a chance to attend small groups called Career Cafes held during lunch periods that will explore a specific group of careers in more detail. During this time we will talk about what a person in that career does on the job, which electives they should take throughout high school, what majors they could major in college, which colleges in NC offer these majors, and what they can be doing now in middle school to sharpen the skills they will need for the specific career. The seventh graders will do this activity next week, depending on snow days.