Grade 8 CTE Tennessee Standards

Conduct five informational interviews with professionals in a career aligned to your interest. Compare responses to previously completed research expectation.

Experiential Learning

Career Financial Planning

Career Planning

Academic Planning

Understand and identify your academic strengths. Compare and contrast those strengths to the knowledge and skills necessary for success in an interest-aligned career.

Conduct a research project, citing multiple sources, to analyze and describe how skills learned in school (including academic, technical, and "soft skills") benefit an individual in postsecondary training, career, and society. Articulate importance of specific skills that will be emphasized in future education, including literacy, numeracy, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

Based on your desired career, calculate education costs. Include early postsecondary opportunity (EPSO) credits if applicable. Create a financial savings plan to achieve goal.

Research and understand the differences between financial aid options (scholarships, grants, student loans, etc.) and the misconceptions surrounding the cost of postsecondary education. Explain how financial aid can make postsecondary education more affordable, and how different types of financial aid impact that cost. Research both external and in-state financial aid options for Tennessee students.

Analyze the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form and discuss the information needed in completing and submitting it to the U.S. Department of Education.

Research salaries based on desired career path using reputable, accurate, and current sources.

Understand that each job has a salary range. Research multiple job salary ranges, including low- and high-end salaries along with the education level required. Compare and contrast what factors influence salary range. Evaluate steps needed to financially plan for work and life goals.

Using personal profile and career plan goals, prepare customized career preparation materials or exercises for a specific occupation or industry, such as:

Resume

Cover letter(s)

Thank-you notes (after interviews) for potential employers

List of transferable skills

Job application(s)

Mock interview or role-play exercise

Participate in, and document, a service project that will be presented to the school and/or the community. Investigate a need in the community, conduct interviews, ask clarifying questions to determine specifics, create an innovative way to address the need, document research and proposed solution, and present proposal using effective oral and written communication skills.

Using the need identified in Standard 17, create a business plan. Describe the key components of the entrepreneurial startup process (the entrepreneur, the environment, the opportunity, startup resources, and the new venture organization) and how it seeks to solve the need or problem.

Read a case-study about an ethical dilemma in a workplace (such as plagiarism) and craft an argument that develops and supports a claim about a potential solution to the challenge posed by applying communications and literacy skills.

Identify education requirements for success in an interest aligned career. Determine appropriate coursework, up through high school graduation, that would lead to postsecondary success. Participate in a preview day for incoming freshman high school students if available in your district. Explore opportunities for earning early postsecondary credit such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, statewide dual credit, and dual enrollment.

Identify which Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) most closely aligns to your career interests. Research how to join and/or apply. If no CTSO at your middle or high school exists, consider and research steps to start one in the future.

Understand the admissions processes for four-year colleges and universities, two-year community colleges, and technical schools. Research specific academic requirements for admission (standardized test scores, GPA, written essays, etc.) for a postsecondary institution aligned to your desired career.

Meet your academic counselor. Understand how your counselor supports you in your academic career. Identify all the resources available to you as you explore and plan for your future career goals.

Create a five- to six-year academic plan based on your desired career path in accordance with State Board Middle School Policy 2.102. The five- to six-year plan should include major academic milestones, such as testing requirements and high school graduation, and what postsecondary plans are required for success in their chosen field. Include opportunities for CTE classes, industry credentials, or work-based learning.

Discuss the impact of effective college and career planning. Create a personal career profile and make an oral presentation describing an ideal career, minimum education requirements, and identify any entrepreneurial opportunities within a field of personal interest.

Explore the alignment between your individual skills, desired career, and personality. Describe how your strengths benefit your chosen career.

Identify specific experiences that will foster success in your desired career. Research how you could participate in these kinds of activities in the future.

Investigate labor market information in a sector aligned to your career interests. Analyze national, state, regional, and local labor markets and classify evidence of high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand occupations. Analyze the effects of changing employment trends, societal needs, and economic conditions on career planning.

Community Context

Awareness of Available Careers

Academic Aptitude

Positive Self-Concept

Qualities For Success

Analyze and describe how interpersonal and leadership skills (such as respecting differences within groups, personal responsibility, and articulating a clear vision) are necessary to maintain quality relationships and success in postsecondary training and the workplace. Identify, develop, and practice specific skills through team projects.

Distinguish between values, beliefs, and strengths and understand how they foster success in life. Understand how respect for others' values, beliefs, and strengths leads to success in group settings.

Evaluate the impact of positive and negative personal choices, including the use of electronic communication and engagement on social media platforms, and how it affects a positive self-concept.

Identify common emotions or feelings and cite the environments or circumstances where they arise. Apply strategies to manage difficult experiences, such as asking for help or engaging in self-advocacy.

Demonstrate the ability to set appropriate boundaries and requests for personal privacy. Practice self-advocacy by applying problem-solving and decision-making skills to make safe and healthy choices, with support from peers, school, and community partners when needed.

Understand how fostering academic strengths lead to academic achievement. Articulate your own academic strengths and how to adopt dispositions that lead to successful learning.

Identify academic strengths and areas for improvement. Apply specific strategies to positively impact school performance, such as asking for help when needed, using appropriate communication skills, and applying feedback from teachers.

Research and articulate the importance of honesty and integrity in academics and career by describing appropriate and inappropriate practices in topics such as writing/plagiarism, internet security, identity theft, workplace ethics, and interpersonal relationships/bullying.

Use case-studies or compare and contrast situational results to determine appropriate actions in similar circumstances. Identify and practice (throughout the course) appropriate personal practical strategies to resolve ethical dilemmas.

Understand how changing economic and societal needs influence employment trends and job availability using job sourcing and career exploration websites.

Analyze how critical thinking, problem-solving, information and technology management, interpersonal awareness, honesty, and dependability are used in the workplace. Compare how these skills are transferable between and among various occupations.

Research and demonstrate understanding of characteristics and tactics for handling difficult conversations, resolving conflict, and giving and receiving constructive criticism.

Explore available occupations and career fields using a variety of available sources, such as U print, on line, interviews with business representatives, job shadowing, tours, guest speakers, career fairs, videos, and simulated work activities/products. Compare results of research to available career opportunities in the local community or region using job sourcing and career exploration websites.

Develop a chart, table, or graphic to compare characteristics of interesting careers, such as alignment to personal interest and aptitude, education requirements, available positions, salaries, potential lifetime earnings, typical duties, working conditions, and employer benefits.

Research the backgrounds of successful entrepreneurs. Compare and contrast various skills, experiences, and academic strengths associated with entrepreneurship.

Identify all available CTE courses and pathways, industry credentials and certifications, and work-based learning opportunities available in your middle school and high school. Understand the differences between CTE courses, industry credentials, and work-based learning and how to pursue each option of postsecondary readiness.

Understand the similarities and differences among community, technical, and four-year residential colleges within the same geographic region. Compare and contrast each option.

Identify multiple major employers at the local and state level. Create a list of interesting careers you may find with each company. Compare these skills to your results from a career assessment tool.

Compile and evaluate an on-going list of attributes commonly found in leaders and describe how those characteristics contributed to their success. Some examples may include self-reliance, willingness to learn, effective communication, and time management.

Understand, respect, and demonstrate appreciation for alternate points of view, individual differences, cultural diversity, and differences in various family configurations.

Define the attributes of a SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based) goal. Create a set of SMART goals for an upcoming project.

Apply time management skills to your SMART goals or projects and evaluate how your actions contributed to achieving your timely results through demonstration of the following skills:

Personal organization

Prioritizing work

Creating schedules

Setting deadlines

Demonstrate the following communication skills appropriate to task and audience:

Active listening skills

Oral communication

Written communication

Demonstrate the following effective note-taking strategies from multiple sources such as lectures, journals, websites, and/or textbooks and manuals:

Utilize an outline to identify main ideas

Identify questions for further research

Summarize main points and speaker/author meanings

Understand how to foster and develop positive attitudes toward self as a unique and worthy person. Identify activities that promote physical, mental, and emotional health within and outside of school.

Experiential Learning

Career and Technical Student Organizations

Education and Career Research

Academic Achievement

Personal Assessment and Goal Development

Summarize the results of a career assessment tool (such as, but not limited to, instruments determining interest and aptitudes, personality traits, learning styles, career choice alignments, personal values, etc.) to develop a personal profile. Ensure summaries cite specific textual evidence from the results, such as individual strengths and abilities, and compare and contrast results with prior knowledge or opinions. Throughout the course, continue to reference the results of the profile to connect individual strengths and interests with goal-setting, planning, and projects.

Using job sourcing and career exploration websites, research various jobs and career sectors. Identify which occupations/industries are in high demand and/or are emerging in their fields. Compare and contrast the information presented, including salary differences, education requirements, and potential challenges to overcome to enter the field.

Understand the role of entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy. Research a well-known entrepreneur and prepare a report on his or her entrepreneurial characteristics and the problem the entrepreneurship sought to address.

Utilize online college access tools to research the differences among postsecondary options, including trade or technical schools, community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities. Include specific characteristics, such as location, public or private institution, on or off-campus housing, and cost per credit hour.

Create an academic map or course of study for a specific career and identify key elements necessary for success, such as:

Important knowledge, skills, and mindsets

Required high school and postsecondary courses

Average ACT scores

Average GPAs

Prerequisite courses for post-graduate degrees and post-graduate entrance exams.

Differentiate between a career cluster and a career pathway and understand the context in which each are important.

Demonstrate a conceptual understanding of CTE content by articulating cross-content connections. Identify various career opportunities within each cluster, and research estimated salary and education ranges.

Using a personal inventory or career exploration assessment, reflect on personal interests and align them to Tennessee's available career clusters. Identify which career clusters are academically or personally interesting, and if they are available in your high school.

Identify and explore the recognized Career and Technical Student Organizations (CTSO) in Tennessee and which organizations are available in your middle school and high school:

Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA)

Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA)

Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA)

Future Farmers of America (FFA)

Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA)

SkillsUSA

Technology Student Association (TSA)

Brainstorm and list the potential benefits of CTSO membership, including but not limited to career self-efficacy, college aspirations, community service, employability skills, leadership development, and academic motivation and engagement.

Interview members of a particular CTSO. Summarize and report on the basic responsibilities, organization, and future opportunities available to them.

With the support of a career assessment tool, engage in self-reflection to evaluate personal goals, skills, and interests to apply findings to research a career pathway or career sector.

Investigate the steps needed for participation in various career and educational opportunities, such as entry-level employment, apprenticeships, community and technical colleges, industry credentials, and/or military service.

Work in a team, with identified roles and responsibilities, to develop an artifact specific to an interest-aligned CTE career cluster. Create a flow chart or graphic organizer to illustrate processes taken to accomplish the task. Execute the plan of the product by designing, organizing, creating, reflecting, maintaining, and updating processes and team member responsibilities as needed.

Research the extracurricular activities available in middle school, their time requirements, and the benefits of school involvement for long-term academic and career success. Compare and contrast several activities.

Create an educational profile of an employee in an interest-aligned career. Compare and contrast your personal knowledge to the information gathered from industry experts through interviews or media outlets.

Participate in a career exploration experience via a career fair, guest speaker, industry tour, or similar experiential activity. Compare new learnings with previously held notions on interestaligned careers.

Create, monitor, and revise long-term (over two years), mid-term (one-two years), and shortterm (less than one year) personal goals, defining desired personal, education, career, and earning milestones. Define relevant key terms where appropriate. Evaluate factors that may influence these goals, including family responsibilities, individual values, and economic conditions.

Compare information in personal profile and desired short-, mid-, and long-term goals and identify areas where support and development may be needed. Create, and continue to build throughout the course, a personal toolkit of multiple available resources {physical and digital) to assist with educational achievement, personal growth and development, and career advancement. Vet resources for the toolkit by assessing the extent to which each resource addresses a particular claim or recommendation for addressing a challenge or problem.

Evaluate current academic progress and how it aligns to future career goals. Identify and articulate academic strengths and areas for improvement.

Apply knowledge of personal academic strengths and weaknesses to know when and how to ask for help, when needed. Understand what resources are available to positively influence school performance. Identify strategies for improving educational achievement and performance.

Research and select appropriate study habits, organizational strategies, stress reduction, and time management tactics to improve personal academic achievement and future career success. Test hypotheses about appropriate strategies by following steps to techniques and tools precisely and provide updates {via methods such as oral report, teacher-student check-in meetings, or personal reflection journal) about how the techniques did or did not improve achievement.

Demonstrate the ability to work independently and cooperatively with peers, school leaders, and community partners when needed. Show dependability, productivity, and initiative when completing individual and group projects.

Identify a list of skills that are transferable between different job sectors and careers.

Electronic Communication and Collaboration

Digital Citizenship

Presentation Software

Database Applications

Spreadsheet Applications

Word Processing and Publishing

Communication Networks, the Internet, and Technology Operations

Research recent developments in information technology affecting the supply/demand characteristics of the job market, including career pathways and occupational outlooks for occupations in business and finance that require information technology expertise. Synthesize findings into a presentation highlighting the typical roles and responsibilities of professionals in high-growth occupations.

Craft documents using word processing program features and methods such as:

Paragraph formatting (line spacing, justification, indentations)

Bulleted and numbered lists

Tables of multiple columns, with and without borders

Margins, headers, footers, page numbers, and footnotes

Typeface fonts and weights, including hyperlinks

Capitalization, punctuation, number expression, grammar

Printing orientation, one- or two-sided, to a selected printer

Bibliographies and tables of contents

Saving to a file that can be shared and/or transported, including saving to cloudbased or external sources

Enhance documents by including graphic arts components such as borders and shaded elements, graphs and charts from other programs, watermarks, and imagery imported from technology devices and drives as well as sources retrieved from the Internet, including adding citations and/or captions for each element when appropriate.

Create, format, and edit documents suitable for print or electronic distribution, both fourcolor and two-color (black and white).

Critique and edit existing documents with standard proofreading and editing marks to conform to a standard business style guide (e.g., fonts, colors, line spacing). Practice the use of electronic revision marks and comments, where supported.

Complete a comprehensive word-processing project with instructor approval that applies the skills acquired in this section. For example, prepare a contract, MLA-style report, business proposal, or budget report from a student organization.

Use a spreadsheet program to create and format academic and business documents for the purposes of tabulating and calculating numerical and/or textual data (e.g., statistics, historical data, measurements), such as budget calculations, sales reports, lab data, and related analyses.

Craft documents using a spreadsheet program using features and methods such as:

Cells, columns, and rows

Formulas and functions

Copy, move, delete, and fill

Cell-value formats (numerical and text) and alignment

Column and row width/height, insert/delete, move

Printing to a selected printer

Saving with a file format that can be shared and/or transported

Create new formulas to analyze data by calculating with, extracting from, presenting, and/or summarizing, including:

Basic arithmetic calculations

Basic mathematic (e.g., SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX) and text (e.g., LEN, LEFT, RIGHT, MID) functions

Copying formulas that include both relative and absolute cell references

Sorting in ascending/descending order

Filtering data to retrieve specific values

Basic conditional formatting (e.g., red for negative values)

Create and format for optimal clarity a variety of types of graphs and charts, including bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and X-Y graphs, based on tabulated data.

Retrieve a spreadsheet template (from those installed with the program or from the Internet) and customize it for a particular assignment approved by the instructor. For example, prepare a “timecard” of one’s daily hours spent on a month-long job assignment.

Identify, connect, and demonstrate the correct usage of elements of a typical home computer, including a monitor, keyboard, mouse, network cable, and USB devices (such as camera, memory, or scanner). Perform basic troubleshooting as needed for situations involving these components (e.g., if the computer does not recognize a device).

Use a database program to interpret the structure of an existing database (found in teaching resources or teacher-created), identifying tables, fields, key fields, queries, forms, and reports.

Using an existing database (found in teaching resources or teacher-created), create and run a database report based on basic queries. For example, retrieve the relevant information to answer a customer product inquiry during a mock customer service phone call.

Using an existing database (found in teaching resources or teacher-created), create, modify, and perform basic queries through a form to create a new table/view in a database.

Design, create, and deliver an oral presentation for a selected audience on a topic approved by the instructor. Using a specified slide number and duration, include the following elements:

A selected theme (colors, background, fonts, etc.)

Bulleted text based on a chosen style

Photographs and other imagery

Charts and graphs

Video and animated graphics

Animated transitions of slides and components within a slide

Design, create, and deliver a self-running electronic slideshow for a selected audience on a topic approved by the instructor. Using a specified slide number and duration, include the following elements:

A selected theme (colors, background, fonts, etc.)

Photographs and other imagery

Video and animated graphics

Animated transitions of slides Save the file in a format that can be tran

Research, summarize, and deliver (via presentation, document, spreadsheet data/chart, or other format) a summary of the various perspectives and ramifications surrounding an ethical issue related to modern-day electronic communications, as approved by the instructor. Develop and strengthen claim(s) and counterclaim(s) about the issue, citing supportive evidence. Potential issues include spam, flaming, cyberbullying, libel, slandering, and mining of personal data for profit.

Research, summarize, and deliver (via presentation, document, spreadsheet data/chart, or other format) a summary of the various perspectives and ramifications surrounding an ethical issue related to intellectual property rights, as approved by the instructor. Develop and strengthen claim(s) and counterclaim(s) about the issue, citing supportive evidence. Potential issues include copyright infringement, piracy, plagiarism, art licensing, creative commons, and the state/federal laws that govern them.

Explain, furnish examples, and demonstrate technical literacy with the following terms:

The Internet, World Wide Web, and various browsers

Network speeds, wireless communication, firewalls, and gateways

Domains, hyperlinks, homepages, favorites/bookmarks, plugins, tabs, and downloads/uploads

Employ skills covered in this course (document processing, spreadsheet applications, electronic presentations, databases, Internet fluency) to complete a cross curricular project approved by the instructor.

Correctly and safely execute basic file management operations on a typical personal computer and shared storage media, including the opening, creating, copying, moving, deleting, and renaming of files and folders, as well as searching for a specified file or folder on local or networked storage media.

Research effective use of cloud storage, online digital collaboration platform, and file sharing applications. Recommend and effectively employ the appropriate file storage and sharing solution for a given project.

Describe and demonstrate the correct connections and setup for a new wireless router in a home computing environment. Discuss the impact of network speeds, wireless communication, firewalls, and gateways on individual and societal productivity.

Describe the steps necessary to retrieve, download, and safely install new applications, updates, and plug-ins from the Internet.

Compare and contrast the accessibility of the Internet through a home router versus through a public wi-fi access point. Discuss the risks and advantages of using secure home networks versus publicly accessible networks.

While preparing materials and assignments in this course, use a browser to access and download Internet resources by uniform resource locator (URL), hyperlink, or favorite/bookmark.

Use a word processing program to create and format documents with academic and business styles (e.g., memos, letters, agendas, reports, tabular lists) to communicate the results of research, meetings, lab reports, and relevant assignments in this course.