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Introduction to myWAY Employability

teaching practice
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For student year

Middle years
Senior years

Helps students to

  • explore a range of careers
  • develop literacy skills
  • explore why people work
  • Helps teachers to

  • use myWAY Employability
  • cater for diverse learners
  • establish connections
  • Summary

    myWAY Employability is a smart web application that helps young people plan and prepare for their working life. myWAY Employability guides young people though a series of questions to help them identify their strengths, interests, learning and environmental preferences, and then matches this information to potentially relevant careers and employment pathways. myWAY Employability provides scaffolded goal setting, to break goals into smaller action lists to track progress. It also contains a variety of information articles co-produced with the autistic community, covering topics such as Preparing for Work Experience; Getting Around; Creating a Job Application; Pathways to University, TAFE, or College; and Disclosure in the Workplace.

    The purpose of this practice is to:

    • Introduce students to the myWAY Employability website.
    • Support students to login to the myWAY Employability website
    • Engage students in thinking about post-school options.

    This practice meets the needs of diverse learners. Some students will benefit from  a peer mentor to engage in career-related self-awareness tasks and/or navigate the website independently.  

    This practice aligns with the General Capabilities of the Australian curriculum as described on the website of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority

    This practice also aligns with the National Curriculum Work Studies as described on the website of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority

    Preparing to teach

    Preparation for the first time use of myWAY Employability

    • Create a myWAY Employability account for yourself.
       
    • Become familiar with myWAY Employability. It will help you to demonstrate to your students how to use it.
      • Some of the features that you may like to explore include
        • the option for a student to view the site in grayscale - this is available at the bottom of the landing page
        • the Help section - this provides further information about the platform and how it can be used
      • We also recommend you read the article How to use myWAY as part of a team
         
    • Identify which students may need support to use myWAY Employability interactive activities and the type of support required, for example:
      • a peer mentor to assist them with myWAY Employability
      • an adult to help them with myWAY Employability
        • When an adult is supporting a student, make sure the adult works across all students. That way no one student is singled out as 'different' and all students feel included.
           
    • Ensure you plan time for students to set up their logins and passwords.

    Unit plans

    The unit plans for each practice are available as a PDF or in a word version. Use the word version if you wish to amend the plan or record any teaching adjustments.

    Some of the activities and quizzes will be completed on the myWAY Employability website. 

    Resources

    Throughout the practices you will find a number of supporting resources. These are scaffolded using the three hands.

    These resources are designed to support your students with the activities in the practices.

    Scaffolding Helping Hands

    Teacher notes: Adjustments  for  students  with  diverse  abilities

    All myWAY Employability activities have been designed to maximise  student  access.  

    The notes on making adjustments for students with diverse abilities outline how each practice is designed to assist teachers to teach to the diversity within their classroom.

    Glossary

    Each glossary booklet contains word lists and activities at the three different levels of scaffolding. The glossary will assist students to pre-learn the vocabulary used in the practice.

    This video which provides a quick example of how to teach vocabulary. Note: this video is intended for viewing by teachers.   

    This pre-teaching vocabulary video is included in all of the MyWay Employability practices.

    This pre-teaching vocabulary video is included in all of the MyWay Employability practices.

    Ensure that your students have access to a computer to individually log onto the myWAY Employability website.

    In the classroom

    Introduce myWAY Employability

    Go to the myWAY Employability website and show students the introductory video on the homepage (you will need Internet access for this task).

    Use a Smartboard if you have one available, otherwise ask students to go the website (using a computer or tablet) and talk them through it.

    Demonstrate to students the various sections of the website and how to navigate between sections. Then make sure all students are able to create their own login account and a password that they can remember.

    Explain how you will be using the myWAY Employability website in class and homework activities in the coming weeks.

    Ask: Any questions about the website?

    Create student logins and passwords

    Setting up the login.

    Whether the student uses their personal email address or their school address they will need to establish a password. Some of your students may need assistance in setting up a secure password.

    • Students with personal devices will be able to save their password on the laptop.  However, it is still important that this is recorded if they wish to access the site from another machine.
    • If students share devices, they will need to ensure they remember their password and store it securely.

    Guidelines for setting up password.

    Many sites have guidelines for setting up password which include the use of lower and upper case, symbols and numbers. The passwords for myWAY Employability must be at least 8 characters, contain 3 different character types (lowercase, uppercase, number, etc), and must not contain 3 consecutive identical characters.

    Suggested ideas to support students creating password.

    Some students may find it difficult to remember their password. To assist students to set up passwords that meet the myWAY Employability requirements, you may like to use the following approach. 

    • Establish a formula for passwords for example – initials + street name or pets name + year of birth
    • Use initials for First name and Surname
    • Street name or pet’s name.  Ask students to choose something that is meaningful to them.
    • Use last 2 digits for year of birth
    • For example, Student Naomi Smith who lives in Leopold Street and was born in 2005 may choose to use the following combination NSleopold05
      • Initials + Street name + Year of birth
      • She can then record this in her notebook as Initials, street, year of birth
      • Depending on your students you may also talk about substituting numbers for letters.  For example, 3 = E and 5 = S and 0 (zero) = O (capital O)

    For example: - the word Leopold would be written as l30p0ld

    4. Explore the site

    Allow students time to explore the site once they have created their logins.

    In the Post-school options: self-discovery practice students will complete the myWAY Employability Career Exploration quiz, and the myWAY Employability My Strengths quiz on the myWAY Employability website. 

    Practice toolkit

    Practice implementation planner template

    We know that it is not always easy to keep track of what is working and what is not. So, we have created this template for you to record and reflect on what you are doing to help you create a more inclusive classroom. The implementation planner contains:

    • Guidance around goal setting
    • Reflection section (What worked, didn’t work and what to change and next steps.)
    • Prompting questions

    Implementation planner template

    Implementation planner with examples

    Set your professional learning goal for:

    Introduction to myWAY Employability
    You can set and save your goal for inclusive practices using inclusionED. Saved goals will appear in your profile. Here you can access, refine and review your goal easily.

    Benefits of goal setting

    Setting, working towards, and reflecting on goals helps you grow professionally and improve your practice. You can access AITSL learning resources for teachers to learn more about:
    How to set goals
    The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership recommends using the SMART matrix to frame your goal setting.

    SMART goals refers to goals that are:
    • Specific
    • Measurable
    • Achievable
    • Relevant
    • Time-phased
    Read more about Improving teaching practices.

    Resources

    Teacher notes: Making adjustments for students with diverse abilities

    Related Practices

    This practice is from the core research project

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