CK Discovery for 8th Grade Welcome Kit

Want to learn how to use Career Key Central to view and manage your CK Discovery students’ activity? Go to Support> Manage CKD Discoverers.

Time to Complete

4 minutes

Overview

This Welcome Kit helps you implement Career Key Discovery (CKD) with 8th grade students.  You will use this personality and interest assessment to prepare students and their families for the important education and career decisions that start in high school. Greater clarity about career direction helps 8th and 9th grade students make more informed choices about high school classes to take.

It’s important because high school class choices significantly impact students’ post-secondary options. Here how,

  • A less rigorous course load in math, science and foreign language can prevent a high school senior from applying to certain colleges, engineering and nursing programs.
  • A less rigorous course load may also foreclose a student’s eligibility for state scholarships because they cannot apply to 4 year colleges as a senior.
  • Certain sequences of career and technical programs may start in the 9th grade.
  • Some states, like Texas, require all 8th graders to choose a form of career cluster to jump start these decisions.

CKD helps 8th graders make more informed decisions by learning more about themselves, their strongest Holland personality types, and careers that are likely to be thriving and promising for them. Depending on your available class time and curriculum needs, adapt these Career Key resources to fit your program.

Takeaways

  • Get started with our implementation planning guide
  • Implement using lesson plans and activities that you can download
  • Take advantage of related resources for interpreting assessment results, school counseling, parents, and funding for Career Key
  • Learn how Holland’s Theory and career well-being lead to long-term, positive student outcomes from our research e-Books

A. Getting Started

Implementation Planning Guide

Overview

With Career Key Discovery, 8th grade students learn about themselves and identify careers that fit who they are and strengthen their long-term career well-being.

Students begin by taking a short, 10-minute assessment based on Holland’s Theory to find their “fit” within six personality types. Then, they uniquely explore thriving and promising careers, localized career clusters, and CTE programs that fit their personality, interests and values. That information helps students choose high school classes that best prepare them for successful postsecondary transitions.

For many students, the Career Key experience will be the first time they’ve ever had the opportunity to seriously consider their future. Their assessment results can serve as a launching pad for completing learning plans and meaningful conversations with counselors, families, and friends.

Key Facts: How the Career Key Discovery assessment works

  • Takes students about 10 minutes to complete
  • Mobile and tablet friendly
  • Scientifically valid Holland personality and interest inventory
  • Self-interpreting, individualized explanation of assessment results, including environments that the student will find thriving, promising, and challenging
  • Students receive a shareable PDF report (sample) with results and their selected options

Shared Learning Goals

Practical goals teachers and administrators have shared with us include…

  1. Increase students’ awareness of themselves – their interests, personality, and values,
  2. Help students relate their personal characteristics to occupations and education programs,
  3. Expand the career options students are considering,
  4. Stimulate students’ career exploration, such as, discussing possible careers and training programs with others and doing online research,
  5. Help students create an individualized learning plan or personal graduation plan
  6. Increase students’ confidence in their ability to make good career choices

Career Key meets American School Counseling Association (ASCA) Mindsets and Behaviors, as part of its professional counseling National Model for College and Career Readiness (2019). See our chart mapping them and student competencies to Career Key’s resources for more details.

Step by Step Implementation

Below we describe three steps to implementation. The List of Teacher Downloads in the next Implementation section contains all student and teacher materials mentioned below.

Step 1. Preparation

  • Decide when taking the Career Key assessment fits into your course schedule.
  • Review the Welcome Kit materials and adapt resources as needed.
  • You may wish to take the Career Key Discovery assessment yourself to see the student perspective (as well as the Profile report), please start here on our 8th grade demo site. It shows our U.S. base product with careers only mapped to Texas 8th grade clusters called “endorsements.”
  • Optional: Pre-Assessment Student Survey: Use the survey questions provided to create an online survey to measure gains in students’ pre and post career perspectives.
  • Learn how to use Career Key Central to monitor and follow up with students.
  • Make sure your assessment plug-in is installed so students can take it.

Step 2. Student Engagement

  • Send the Parent letter home to engage parents in supporting their students’ experience.
  • Optional: Administer the online survey to students prior to taking the assessment.
  • Provide students with the link to take the Career Key Discovery Assessment.
  • Optional Post Assessment Activities
    • Find My Fit – group activity on the six Holland RIASEC Types/ Work Groups

Step 3. Reflection: Gather and Share Data

  • Optional Post Assessment Survey:
    • Administer the same online post assessment survey
    • Group Discussion: Students share their responses to the Reflection Questions
  • Want students to learn more online after completing Career Key Discovery? Go to the Fit Focus Forward Resources section of Career Key’s website.

B. Implementation

First we’ll do a quick overview, and then provide links to all the downloads you’ll need.

Lesson Planning

Taking the CKD Assessment & Follow Up Activities

Depending on your course schedule, you can combine these activities into one or two class periods or space activities out across multiple days. The learning activities are optional and enable students to further explore how to connect their personality type with careers that fit.

You may wish to familiarize yourself with Career Key Discovery by …

Instruction

1. Introduction to Career Key (15 minutes)

  • Introductory Power Point Slides: Introduction to Career Key (5 min.)
  • Pre-Assessment Career Survey: Pre-assessment: Online or on paper (2 minutes)
  • Watch Video: Career Key Discovery Overview https://vimeo.com/392542053 (2.25 minutes)
  • Watch video: Career Profile Decision Tools https://vimeo.com/409021237 (4:25 minutes)

2. Taking the Career Key Discovery test (10-15 minutes)

  • Share the link to the Career Key Discovery assessment (Find it in Career Key Central> My Organization> Technical)
  • Students will progress through these sections:

1. Welcome: Student sign in – first name, last name, email

2. Take Assessment – (allow 5-10 minutes)

3. Assessment Results – students learn about their thriving, promising and challenging environments; and their top 2-3 RIASEC Types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional)

4. Explore Careers – students explore thriving and promising careers

5. Career Profile – a summary of their assessment results and selected careers

Note: Students only take the assessment one time, but can sign in later to “Explore Careers”

3. Follow up Learning Activities: Students explore 2-3 careers in their strongest personality types.

  • Power point: Finding My Fit – Student Handout with Group Activity (30-45 min)
  • Explore Texas Career Pathways – Student Handout with Online Activity (20-30 min)

4. Reflection and Closing (10 minutes)

  • Students take the Post Assessment Survey
  • Discuss the Reflection questions (2-3 minutes)
  • Send the Parent Letter home to support student and parent discussions on their career explorations and next steps.

List of Teaching Resources & Downloads

Videos

Teacher: Career Key Overview ( https://vimeo.com/393492821)
Students: Career Key Discovery (https://vimeo.com/392542053)
Students: Career Profile Decision Tools (https://vimeo.com/409021237)

Student Materials

Parent Letter (pdf)

Student Surveys

Career Key Discovery web application

Student Activities

Instructional Tools

Lesson Plan

PowerPoints

C. Related Resources & Downloads

Interpreting Assessment Results

Sample CKD Profile
CK Discovery At a Glance Interpretation Tool
Career Key Clusters Map

Also see the article, How to interpret CK Discovery results and advise discoverers

School Counseling

ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors Infographic
ASCA Career Key Map to Competencies

Funding & Advocacy

CK Funding Sources
CK Funding Sources – Federal
CK Discovery Flyer

Parents & Guardians

Middle School Parent Guide to Student’s Career Well-being
Personality Major Match – What does the research say?  An eBook for the public about why it’s important to choose a college major that matches your Holland personality and interests.

D. Research You Can Use

Scroll down in Career Key’s Shop to our most up to date list of free downloads. (No registration required to download). They include,

  • Personality Major Match – What does the research say? (PDF)
  • Personality Major Match – Professionals’ Guide (PDF)
  • Professionals’ Guide to Career Well-being (PDF)

Also see in these Resources:
Career Key Manual