Blended Learning for Personalized Career/College Planning

Over the course of my career, I’ve struggled to address the needs of all my students with my career/college planning lessons. In any group of high school students, I’ve had a percentage that are interested in (1) on the job training, (2) an apprenticeship, (3) a certificate program, (4) an associate’s degree, (5) a bachelor’s degree or (6) the military. My PowerPoints included some information on each of the postsecondary pathways because I believed in equity and access for all my students. I was also, to some degree, trying to increase student engagement by addressing all the pathways.
 
The reality was, however, that far too many of my slides contained information on college planning. Moreover, it wasn’t until much later in my career that I started collecting data to evaluate my students’ interests, learning and long-term outcomes. I also didn’t understand that PowerPoint is not an effective tool to create a learning experience with a high degree of student engagement.
 
The more I learn about blended learning, the more I believe it has the potential to improve our career/college planning lessons. I encourage all school counselors to seek more information about how to improve your career/college lessons through blended learning. Plenty of information exists online through a quick search (e.g., https://www.blendedlearning.org).
 
Blended learning, quite simply, is an education program (formal or informal) that combines online digital media with traditional classroom methods. It requires the physical presence of both counselor and student, with some element of student control. If you are a one-to-one computing school it will be easier to get started with blended learning lessons, but it is also possible with bring your own device (BYOD) or a traditional computer lab.
 
What I really like about blended learning for career/college planning lessons is that I can use traditional instruction to ensure that all my students have particular mindsets (e.g., M 4. Understanding that postsecondary education and life-long learning are necessary for long-term career success). Ideally, I would do this through a well-designed learning experience that includes student engagement and perception data. Then, I can use some of the blended learning models to give my students “voice and choice” over which postsecondary pathway they might research. For instance, they could choose one or two learning experiences based on a pathway and then rotate on a prescribed schedule. They could also choose what they are most interested in from a curated playlist of videos and articles.
 
Although the problem I’m trying to solve mostly applies to high school, I’ve seen examples of blended learning with younger students. If I was designing a career/college lesson for elementary students, I would use developmentally appropriate videos and focus on career awareness and/or the National Career Clusters Framework while giving students some voice and choice over the content and pace.
 
The ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors contain several self-management skills including B-SMS 1. Demonstrate ability to assume responsibility and B-SMS 3. Demonstrate ability to work independently. I believe that blended learning, done well, teaches those skills and goes a long way toward increasing student engagement with its emphasis on choice. If you aren’t familiar with blended learning already, I encourage you to seek additional training and begin integrating it into your toolbox when you’re planning school counseling lessons.
 
Contact Brian Mathieson, Ed.D., NBCT, WSCA president, at brianmathiesonwsca@gmail.com or on Twitter at @MathiesonBri