We had the opportunity to work with Lifelong Learning Institution (LLI) this year in running learning journeys for secondary schools. It has been 3 months since we first started running it in March before the June holidays.
We had an estimated amount of 1500+ students from 10 schools that visited the LLEC and went through facilitated workshops & games specially designed by us! The main purpose of this learning journey is to allow students not only be exposed to the jobs in the 3 emerging economies, but also serve as a self-discovery journey for them to reflect upon when making decisions in their career pathways.
We brought students through 3 different activities in this Learning Journey:
- The Lifelong Learning Exploration Centre (LLEC)
- Digital, Care and Green Career Exploration (DCG)
- Imagining Future Jobs Exercise
Lifelong Learning Exploration Centre (LLEC)
The focus throughout the LLEC experience is centered around the use of RIASEC as a tool to identify what possible career pathways students can consider. RIASEC is an acronym for the six career profile types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising & Conventional) that is necessary in every organisation.
Students were guided to the first section of the machines in LLEC to identify their RIASEC profiling through a series of questions. Afterwards, they can look through a list of possible jobs and what courses they can take to get there.
After going through the entire LLEC experience by themselves the trainer will gather them for a debrief. Despite using the RIASEC tool as a guide for self-discovery, we don’t want the students to feel confined by the RIASEC profile they identify with in limiting the career paths they could take. Using some job roles as examples to enlighten them that jobs are not confined to one specific RIASEC, but a mix of different RIASEC. At the end of the LLEC, we hope to encourage them to still continue exploring in furthering their self-discovery journey.
One of the convenient features of the LLEC is that the RIASEC profile follows students through the entire experience, helping them link their profile with possible jobs, and educational pathways. Students even get a summary of the content and recommendations they browsed emailed to them at the end of the day!
Digital, Care and Green Career Exploration (DCG)
The Digital, Care, and Green economies of Singapore are forecasted to grow significantly in the coming years. This segment helps students get exposed to the broad ideas of each of these economies, encouraging students to explore potential opportunities in them with hands-on experiences.
In the Digital economy, students try out doing UI/UX design, one of the fastest growing roles within the digital economy. In this design focused activity, students work in groups of 3–4 to develop a layout of an app. They get to choose how many and what pages are necessary as well as the functions of the app. Facilitators stand ready to give ideas and guide them in their mini-project.
In the Care economy, students role-play as a healthcare professional in decision making card game. Students face various type of patients in different situations and decide the next steps they should take. They learn the ideas of prioritisation, empathy, and critical thinking as each decision they make leads to different consequences.
Lastly in the Green economy, students play a card game that exposes them to the benefits of various Green sector innovations, inventions, policies, and job roles. They compete to create the most green and sustainable city, taking away a much enhanced vocabulary and understanding of the new and rapidly growing Green economy.
After each activity, students were also asked to reflect on the experience and identify the critical core skills they felt were being practiced as they go through the activities. This is to bring awareness on themselves so students can look at what critical core skills they need to work on based on the industry they have interest in.
Imagining Future Jobs
In the past few years, thousands of new job titles have been created with the rapidly changing world. Influencers, social media marketers, data analysts never existed in the past decades. Today, even roles like eSports athletes and Social Entrepreneurs are becoming more prevalent despite being very new in Singapore.
In this segment, we get students to tap onto the students imaginations in order to envision future jobs. They are encouraged to be as wild as possible while we ground them with real world problems as the starting point for their inspiration. We then backtrack from that future jobs to the present and question the students what skills do they need to slowly pick up to be able to thrive in some of these future jobs.
Even though the hours spend on his learning journey might not be enough for students to fully grasp the idea in finding their exact path in life, we hope that the awareness on this topic through this learning journey gives them clarity on what small steps they can start taking action.
At the end of the day, we want to empower students to feel confident in making the decision themselves as they take on the next step in their self-discovery journey!
