It is important to have the required eight components and four elements, as discussed in the previous lesson, in place in your career readiness program to ensure your students will successfully transition from school to college or career. You can best accomplish this with transformational teaching.
Transformational Teaching
Transformational teaching can be defined as the expressed or unexpressed goal to increase students’ mastery of key course concepts while transforming their learning-related attitudes, values, beliefs, and skills (Slavich & Zimbardo, 2013).
Transformational teaching is based on the idea that an instructor’s purpose is greater than delivery of information. Rather than being content-focused, transformational teachers help students become meta-critical participants in the learning process and well-practiced at critical thinking, goal setting, and reflection.”(MONICA FUGLEI, ARAPAHOE COMMUNITY COLLEGE, 2021)
The eight essential components and their corresponding elements, “Are transformative when they are applied to all students and purposefully focused to change the school culture. When implementing each of the components, services can be directed to ensure that each student receives the support they need to be college-ready and career-ready” (Martin, 2010, p5).
Martin also stated that school counselors can engage in transformative practice with the eight components when they are, “Delivered with equity, informed by data, applied systemically across grades K–12, and are culturally sensitive at all levels of intervention. This practice represents inclusion by design, with the goal of equitable outcomes for all students in college and career readiness”.
As you endeavor to implement each component in your career readiness instruction, you must implement strategies and interventions that incorporate the four elements as follows:
- Context: You should customize each component’s strategies and interventions to suit your specific setting, community, and demographics.
- Cultural Competence: You should apply each component in a culturally sensitive manner, understanding the impact of programs, policies, and practices on the lived experience of diverse students in your classroom.
- Multilevel Interventions: Your college and career readiness instruction should apply to all levels, including students, school, family, and community.
- Data: You should ensure your data for each component can identify inequities, develop measurable goals, inform practice, and demonstrate accountability.
(Martin, 2010, p. 4)
The key to transformational teaching is to recognize students as active learners and to engage them in collaboration through group or teamwork, especially with real-world, applicable scenarios. You should also model the skills you desire in your students and facilitate their own acquisition of these skills: analysis, synthesis, interpretation, and connection (Fuglei, 2021). As students develop these skills and apply them to the career readiness program, they are more likely to have a successful transition from high school to their college and career journey.
