Peer Review

Employability Skills

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Mar 11, 2019 by Professional Coaching

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This module from the Florida Advanced Technological Education (FL-ATE) Center is aimed to students learning professional behaviors in the workplace, including agility, teamwork, and leadership skills.

It can be adapted for high school, GED graduates, remedial course participants in career development, and community college students in career development program. It's a good basic refresher to have for anyone starting first time employment.

Type of Material:

This is an assignment for classes tht may be used in a number of approaches.

Recommended Uses:

In class practice and team assignments- it is a nice starter template for beginning workplace skills development.

It can be used in a flipped classroom setting; concepts can be introducd for work at home. The assignment can then be used in a classroom because the learners apply the knowledge they already gained.

Technical Requirements:

Basic web browser needed; viewed in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer and did not experience any difficulties in viewing the content.

Adobe PDF reader required.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Students will understand the importance of communication and learn about working in a team.

Develop agility
Develop communication skills
Learn business management teams
Team leadership skills

Target Student Population:

Middle School, High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, Grade School

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Only basic computer navigation skills would be needed to successful use this website

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

This particular case can be adapted to anything other than the "toothpick" or "widget" factory. The concepts are relevant; the best portion is the list of questions (page 2).

Quite often, at work, it's required to work in a team-whether an employee likes it or not. :)

It is essential to keep these questions in mind and hone communication/negotiation skills to minimize damages.

The questions will be very helpful to the participants (and to the instructor), for a debriefing.

Concerns:

Perhaps add a short course module and links.

Adapt to different settings and write what would stay the same or change (factory vs. software development group)

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Sample questions are excellent; they can be re-written or kept "as is" and picked for a specific situation. They can be used as part of this case study or adapted for a scenario setting.

This is a good example for high school students and those participanting in basic career introduction sessions.

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS: You can continue the activity by changing the customer order
specifications (see sample sheet) and/or moving team members around to different teams.
- This is a great opportunity to see how well the students “adapt” to the change.
- Discuss their reactions, how did they feel about the change, how did they react, and
what would they do different. "

This is a really useful option-thank you to the author for suggestion to try this out in class.

Concerns:

The author could consider writing up impressions from running this assignment with different groups. Were there similar issues? What went well? What was the same?

What if the author would create a similar lesson for a technical product? What additional themes would emerge?

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

Clear instructions and template

Easy to use in any setting, including lower/no technology

Very easy to set up this class activity (a vital strength!)

Concerns:

This piece would work well with an additional content that could be included in a flipped classroom setting (for instance, have a few short introductory modules for students and attach them to this assignment).

Other Issues and Comments:

Please consider writing or linking to a few short career development/introduction sessions for this audience so that the activity can be "linked."

However, even on its own, this is a helpful activity that worth trying in class.

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