Educators
Help students make informed decisions about their future
We work together with you to help students in grades 7 to 12 take an active role in finding their path to the workforce. By learning how to make informed choices, youth can begin to proactively manage their career.
We help your students explore their career choices, set goals and determine how to achieve them.
Our Speakers Bureau connects students to real world career stories
For 20 years, the volunteers in our Speakers Bureau have shared their career experiences with students in elementary and high school.
Many of our volunteers have shared an idea of what they offer students in our Career Profile section. We suggest having a series of speakers or more than one at the same time.
In grades 7 and 8, our speakers help your class to explore a wide range of jobs and learn how they got there. By sharing their career journey, our speakers help youth understand the need to continually use new information to assess their current path, consider revising their goals, and determine their next steps.
In a grade 10 careers studies class, students research jobs they find interesting and the skills, knowledge, training, and education required. Our speakers provide an interactive, real world source of valuable information. Having speakers complements our upcoming Career Discovery presentation.
In high school, every subject's curriculum has a career component. Our speakers help connect what students are learning in class to what they can do when they enter the workforce. They know the answers to questions like: "How will I use geometry or calculus when working? What can I do with a degree in biology? What are my career options if I thrive in English or history?" because of their lived experience.
We work with you to arrange a speaker that best suits your needs. Keep in mind that includes considering the availability of our volunteers.
Request a Speaker
Looking for more detail about how the Speakers Bureau works for educators?
Career Discovery
As youth career experts, we've undertaken an iterative process of developing curriculum-based lessons designed to enhance your grade 10 Careers Studies class (GLC20).
The goal of Career Discovery is to equip students to start taking responsibility for their career exploration and planning.
While this program can help all the grade 10 students explore careers, set goals and determine how to achieve them, these sessions are particularly helpful for Career Studies teachers who are new to the course or teach it occasionally.
Now 3 interactive lessons
We now offer 3 interactive lessons to be delivered on separate days:
Transferable skills - What are transferable skills? How do you gain them? And an activity where students identify the ones they have and those they want to learn.
NEW! Identify career / occupation interests - Identify interests, strengths and knowledge to identify potential career clusters and occupations to research
Job Exploration Tools and Labour Market information - includes demonstration of a job exploration tool such as those in our recommended resources and a chance for students to use it.
While we recommend teachers book all 3 lessons, we are open to booking any combination of them.
Career Panel
New in fall 2022 is the option to have a panel of 2 - 4 of our speakers to share about their current job, their career story and answer questions. These sessions are similar to our Explore Your Future panels. We also have short videos of a number of people in the local workforce to help share a wide range of career options.
We recommend this session follow your class' Career Discovery lessons. It may be immediately after or a short time later depending upon speaker availability.
NEW! Take your class on a virtual workplace tour
Our new virtual tour section gives students a chance to see inside some Waterloo Region workplaces.
By opening their doors, these organizations are giving youth a chance to see what it would be like to work there. Some of these tours are videos such as the sample here and others are more like touring a home for sale online.
More research tools for your students
Visit our Recommended Tools page for more resources that you can use with your class to research jobs, labour market information and pathways for training and education required to achieve their career goals.
We help students learn about these tools and how to use some of them as part of our Career Discovery program for grade 10 Careers Studies courses.
Virtual Career Conferences
World of Choices brings high school students together with career mentors working in desired fields, industries and professions. Each student participates in interactive sessions that will open up a world of choices and help them learn first-hand what it takes to be successful. The experience clarifies career and educational pathways and students become actively engaged in designing their own career path.
Career Hunt is a similar concept for students in grades 7 and 8.
These series of virtual career conferences are organized by JA South Western Ontario in partnership with BEP Waterloo Region.
