Career & Technical Education Blog

When you introduce your middle schoolers to career exploration, they begin to see its relevance to their learning experience and start to connect their academics to career and college opportunities. If you interest them well enough, you can even equip them to make informed decisions on their future careers. 

Are my students prepared? It’s a question every career readiness teacher asks. In today’s work environment, it’s more important than ever that students are aware of college and career opportunities and the steps they need to take for success.

Middle school is an important but uncertain time for students to think about their interests and abilities and begin to contemplate their future occupations. As a teacher, you strive to turn that uncertainty into excitement. One of the best ways to do so is to use engaging projects that guide and inspire your students to discover the diverse career opportunities available to them.

If you want to truly open the minds of your middle schoolers to the career possibilities out there, then teaching a unit or course on career exploration is the right way to go. These courses allow students to examine many different options so they can decide on the future that resonates with them the most. 

As a Texas high school business instructor, you may be asked to teach a Principles of Business, Marketing, and Finance course that’s aligned with your TEKS. Making sure your curriculum meets TEKS requirements is essential to ensuring your students learn invaluable business skills.

Health science is one of the most popular CTE clusters in the United States. And while health science classes teach students how to perform specific skills, they don’t usually teach them how to choose a health care career! Because of this trend, instructors need to find ways to better incorporate health science career exploration in their lessons. Talking about health care careers is a key piece in your classroom, but there aren’t many resources out there appropriate to middle school students. To help give your students a clearer idea of their potential careers, we’ve put together a list of the five best lesson ideas for health science career exploration: