Blog #10

     It has been a long time since I had an assigned reading like the Granello article, but it definitely shed some light on my current writing and clarified the expectations of graduate level professors.  As a middle school teacher, I see explicit teaching of study skills, good writing practices, reading strategies, social skills, and other life skills on a daily basis.  My students are expected to grow and develop in these areas, but are not expected to be experts at any point in time.  This article led me to think about my educational experiences from middle school to now and reflect on the guidance and clarity of the assignments being given.  As I think back, I cannot remember clear explanations being giving after graduating from high school of how to write a paper that reflected higher order thinking.  The charts we used from Granello’s article to critique our classmate’s literature reviews were easy to understand and simple to use, but profound in their ability to help us make suggestions on how to improve our papers and create more advanced, academic, higher order pieces of writing.  I appreciate having concrete suggestions that will improve this project, as well as every future project or paper I prepare.

     After reading Brown’s chapter 13, I realized even more the importance of revisiting writing expectations, study skills, and other basic, but critical factors that are common parts of a college education.  With 2/3 of the students entering postsecondary education being nontraditional students (a shocking number!), articles like Granello’s must become an interwoven part of the curriculum at all levels of education.  Regardless of the reasons, nontraditional students have not had the luxury of entering college straight out of high school, and therefore have had longer periods of time to forget the skills that were taught during those years. 

     Other notable things from chapter 13 included several suggestions that could be applicable as we prepare for our mock workshop.  Brown mentioned steps for both the staff who are preparing to assist students in their career explorations, as well as ideas for students who are seeking career guidance.  For staff, needs assessments, interviews, and questionnaires could be helpful in determining the needs of the client(s) and thus, providing a framework for developing effective programs.  Additional ideas that caught my attention in regards to the actual services offered (and that will probably play a part in the development of our mock workshop), include creating longer term interventions (6+ weeks), occupational card sorts, career option discussions, modules, the ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘if’ system developed by Allyn in 1989 (Brown, 2012, p. 303), listing the pros and cons of occupations of interest, and other ideas for both the group and individual career guidance session.  These ideas, and others, will be helpful in preparing a workshop for athletes, who are individuals, but also operate within the context of their teams.

Brown, D. (2012).  Career information, career counseling, and career development (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Granello, D. H. (2001). Promoting Cognitive Complexity in Graduate Written Work: Using Bloom's Taxonomy as a Pedagogical Tool to Improve Literature Reviews. Counselor Education & Supervision, 40, 292-307.