What’s Important to Me?

What’s Important to Me? A Unit on Values Ginny Dodo, Kim Neuharth, and John Krueger

Rationale: • Deaf and hard of hearing students may not have good academic achievement. Many people (parents, teachers, hearing friends) TELL them things they need to know, but… • D/HH students don’t have many opportunities to voice their opinions or discuss what they think is important. • This unit helps students understand what things they feel are important! • This will help them make more realistic career and adult choices. • This will help them prepare for the many decisions they must make as their school life comes to an end soon, and that their adult life begins. Transition Services Preparation & Training

For Students: Why My Values Are Important • They help me choose a career: • not just “get a job.” • They help me find good friends: • not just “hang out” • They help me choose a lifestyle that will make me happy: • not just “make do” with my life Transition Services Preparation & Training

What Values Are Important to Me and My Future Life? • What is important to me as a person? • What things do I like, hate, or don’t care about? • What is important in my relationships with other people? • What kind of people do I like and get along with? • What kind of people bother me, make me mad, make me “crazy”, or make me upset? • What is important as I chose a career path? • What things do I like to do every day, even when I feel bored or lazy? Transition Services Preparation & Training

For Teachers: Unit Planning Stages Transition Services Preparation & Training

Stage 1: Unit Goal Development • 1. Match unit goal ideas with external and state standards • We used the Ohio Dept of Education Standards, found at http://www.ode.state.oh.us/academic_content_standards/ • 2. Prioritize goals and standards that: • Are enduring (life-time) understandings • We focused on self-knowledge and self-understanding • Target student misunderstandings • The unit supports realistic choices based on self-understanding • Are authentic activities • Knowing your values helps with career choices, or apartment choices based upon current salary • Will “hook” and motivate the students • Unit included “real-life” choices about important topics, including choices about drugs, sexual activity, friendships Transition Services Preparation & Training

Stage 2: Identify Outcomes and Evidence—the Six Facets of Understanding Transition Services Preparation & Training

The Six Facets of Understanding, cont. Transition Services Preparation & Training

Stage 3: Planning Learning Activities and Lessons • Hot topic to “hook: students: • Our classroom studied careers in the entertainment and sports industry. • The students identified: • Characteristics of various careers in those fields: • physical trainers, actors, technicians, etc. • Specific and key job characteristics: • desire to travel • working outdoors vs. working indoors • working days vs. working at night • The students compared: • Characteristics of each job to their values • And tried to decide if they would happy with a job in that field. Transition Services Preparation & Training

Stage 3: Planning Learning Activities and Lessons cont. • Use the six facets to plan lessons and activities • Prepare the students to be successful with each of the facets • The facets often “overlap” so accomplish two things at once • Students can explain their personal values and then also interpret how they’ve used them in past decisions and actions. • Students can apply and monitor their use of values, and then self-evaluate (self-knowledge) how consistent they were. • The six facets support the unit outcomes and the external standards, and “prove” that D/HH students can be successful Transition Services Preparation & Training

Sample Lesson Plan • Objective: Given a list of 20 personal values, students will categorize these into “yes”, “no”, and “maybe” piles. Each student will give at least one reason for categorizing each value in this way. • Prerequisite Skills: The students will need to understand the concept of values. They will have completed exercises in making choices based on preferences. Students will use this to help them decide their values and what is important to them. • Materials: Cards that list various personal values cards, and category markers of “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” printed on them. • Procedure: • Introduction: Teacher will ask each student to review and identify one important value they each believe in. Teacher will ask each student to describe a situation in which that value was important to them. Transition Services Preparation & Training

Sample Lesson Plan, cont. • Procedure: • Lesson: Each student will receive a set of value cards and categories. Teacher will ask students to take turns explaining and giving examples of each value (to ensure comprehension). Teacher will review student examples of when a value was important and instruct students to put those values in the “yes” pile. Teacher then will describe how to categorize for “no” and “maybe” (not sure) values. Teacher will ask students to think of examples while they are categorizing so that they can give a good reason for their choices after they are finished sorting. • Culmination: Teacher will ask each student to describe how and why they categorized their values as they did, giving a reason for each decision. Class and teacher are free to ask questions about these decisions. Teacher will ask the class how one student’s values will change decisions that s/he might make about his/her life. Transition Services Preparation & Training

Sample Lesson Plan, cont. • Future lessons: Students will repeat this sorting procedure using work values to identify the importance of: • Benefits, vacations, salary, working alone or with others, working inside or outside, etc. • Students will match personal values with work values to identify potential careers. • Students will use the 20 personal values and the 20 career values to examine their own personal consistency; they will use these to identify three overall life goals • Facets Addressed: • Facet 1: description and explanation of personal and work values • Facet 2: description of situations in which values have been important, how they have used them to make decision, where they should h • Facet 3: matching personal and work values to those of existing careers • Facet 4: explain how another person’s values are different, how their values impact their decisions • Facet 5: explain how another person’s life experiences and feelings about values have led to different decisions and choices • Facet 6: identify areas where they are confused or ambiguous about their values, describe strengths and weaknesses they have in following their values and where they should have made decisions based on their values (but didn’t). Transition Services Preparation & Training

Outcomes • All students (both senior and freshman English classes) divided personal and career values into three piles (yes, no, maybe) and described their values based on these piles. • All students described the type of work they would like to have based upon their personal and career values. • (other unit activities were planned for completion in the future) Transition Services Preparation & Training

What’s Important to Me?