Assessments

The set of basic skills listed below points to those necessary for entry level positions. Beyond those skills are advanced and customer/user interaction skills that may be developed in short-term projects to support the student in a future career in data management, website management, network administration, software development ,or graphic design:

Which of the Career Planning Self-Assessments should you present based on your knowledge of the student? Pick and choose questions according to your knowledge of the student!

Within this topic, you have 1) Computer Programming, Computer Repair and Maintenance, and Computer Support or 2) Data Entry, Graphic Design, Video Game Design, and Web Development:

Information Technology Interests – Computer Programming, Repair, Support
Information Technology Strengths – Computer Programming, Repair, Support
Information Technology Interests – Data Entry, Graphic Design, Video Game Design, Web Development
Information Technology Strengths – Data Entry, Graphic Design, Video Game Design, Web Development

Office, library or business positions that involve the use of computers in some form are entry level positions for the individual. Within the Clerical Duties topics you have options of 1) Clerical Administrative Support Skills, 2) Library Skills, or 3) Editing and Research Skills:

Clerical Interests – Administrative Duties
Clerical Strengths – Administrative Duties
Supervisor Assessment – Administrative Duties
————————————————————
Clerical Interests – Library Duties
Clerical Strengths – Library Duties
——————————————————————
Clerical Interests – Editing and Research
Clerical Strengths – Editing and Research

Within Retail Operations, you have potentially relevant questions within 1) Retail Operations and Marketing Interests:  Accounting, Business Management/Entrepreneurship, and Marketing:

Retail Operations and Marketing Interests -Accounting, Business, and Marketing
Retail Operations and Marketing Strengths -Accounting, Business, and Marketing

As noted, you must use your knowledge of the student to select the sets of questions that are most likely to be relevant to the student’s interests and to the available options in the community. How can you break them down to prevent the student from being overwhelmed? Consider cutting and pasting your own individualized self-assessments for the student based on the number and direct relevance of questions to his preferences and abilities.

Using the student’s perceptions of his strengths and interests is an initial step toward finding valuable volunteer or work experience. The information derived from self-assessments will assist the priming process as you find potential opportunities for the student to practice his skills. Projects result from club and committee activities at school and in various community organizations.  Short-term projects are an opportunity to experience the various aspects of a job and thus will affect the student’s self-assessment. Self-assessment derives from experience for the individual; analyzing experience is more effective than purely projective measures. Weighing the pros and cons of a job once you have done the job obviously improves judgment.

Getting the Job Match

As you review the interests of the student in computer and information technology, the options for job training and short-term employment will be in clerical, library, business office and retail settings. The sometimes repetitive nature of the entry positions is important to the larger goal in job training. Your focus of support in those sites will be job-seeking and job keeping skills. It is often balanced by involvement in other short-term projects that can also be placed on a resume. The combination of office, library or retail positions, and club, school, church or non-profit projects can prove strong in refining the student’s goals and his post-school outcomes.

As is always the case, choose a setting that is conducive to reduced stimulation, and choose a project with duties that are already safely within the student’s capacity.
What is the balance of variation and routine in duties or tasks that will support long-term success for the student? You want some of the tasks to engage the student’s interests. He needs to find satisfaction in the completion of at least some of the duties.

Is your experience that the student can provide volunteer services in a non-profit organization involving system recovery, software updates, wireless networking and security, or installation of anti-virus programs? Does the student find digitally filing and organizing graphics and documents laborious?  Is the touch and feel of handling network cables, moving hardware, and setting up personal workstations rewarding AND does the student seem to do this in a timely fashion? Review the student’s self-assessment of his strengths and his projected interests and use the self-assessments to narrow down and define potential jobs that will benefit the student.

Designing the Volunteer Project: As with job training or employment, carefully assess whether the project is one in which the student can quickly perform over 80% of expected responsibilities independently. This is the aim because Job-Keeping issues, or ‘soft skills,’ are often the major challenges that will require direct instruction, visual supports and emphasis, even in short–term projects. The interaction with peers or supervisor, the response to feedback, the self-regulation and self-organization requirements are likely to be challenging so make sure the project itself is practical for the student’s present level. For the 20% (or less) of project duties that are a challenge, make sure that the student has emerging or partial abilities with those duties.

Can someone else inform all teachers that the student will be upgrading classroom computer hardware in the next week so that the student focuses only on the task of installing software updates according to a list or set of instructions?  Ongoing monitoring of concrete job skills and job-keeping behaviors will be necessary to assure quality and improvement. However, ongoing teaching of multiple skills in a work setting is not consistent with independent work.  Therefore, target the skills already of high-interest to the student that have been demonstrated with measurable success such as installing software patches, downloading new programs, or setting up new computers by attaching and plugging in the physical components.