Approximate Time Needed:
Multi-Day Lesson
Lesson Summary:
Students will use the ECOS Course Planner to create a 4-year plan for courses they will take in high school. In addition,
students will explore the Career and Major modules and store items of interest into their Lockers. They will then use their
course plan to compare classes they would like to take to those suggested for a particular career and/or major.
Lesson Objective:
While creating a 4-year course plan for themselves, students will discover which courses are suggested for the paths they
would like to follow in either a career and/or major.
Materials and Resources:
- ECOS Course Planner
- ECOS Career module
- ECOS Major module
Helpful Hints:
The ECOS Course Planner must be customized and activated by an ECOS administrator before students can use this part of the system
Inform students that they may need to consider a number of different careers and/or majors before they discover attractive paths that such a course plan would entail
Inform students that they must have career and/or major information SAVED IN THEIR LOCKERS in order to View Suggested Classes in the Course Planner
Teachers may want to combine this lesson plan with the Major Shopping Spree and Career Shopping List lessons
Activities
- Students login to ECOS using their User ID and Password and go to the Course Planner in the Portfolio module
- Students click on Edit Course Planner to view the courses available at school
- Students select subject area from drop-down list and click on the Submit button
- When the list of courses within a subject area appear, students select the courses they would like to take in the semester and year in which they plan to take the course
- Students move through the subject list to view and select all courses they plan to take
- Students will click on the View Course Planner button to see the course schedule which they have created
- Students will click on the View Suggested Classes in order for the system to make suggestions for classes students should be taking; these suggested courses reflect the career and/or major information students have saved to their lockers
- Students will select the career and/or major (from the drop-down screen) in which they are interested in having classes suggested
- Students will read the information provided for suggested courses
- Students may go back into their Course Planner and make changes according to the new suggested information
Evaluation:
Teacher accesses the User Directory in the Manage module to check each student’s Course Planner for the completed 4-year plan
Possible Adaptations:
Lesson plan can be divided up into several parts to incorporate student exploration in the career and major modules