- Grade Focus
- Grade 7, Grade 8, Grade 9, Grade 10, Grade 11, Grade 12, Post Secondary, Professional Development
- Age Level
- 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18-22, 22+
- Subject
- Vocational Arts
- Technology Integration Activity
- Discovering the Internet, Imaging, Online Safety, PowerPoint Presentations, Video Productions, Webpage Creation
Career Bytes lesson plan
Introduction
This lesson is designed to encourage students to investigate a particular career through the advance research and completion of a career-based interview. Students will work together to complete a short video of a career professional.
Prerequisite Experience
Students should be capable of conducting research online and will demonstrate some knowledge of video production and digital video camera operation.Teacher Prep Time
One to two hoursTeachers should review the Video Production training videos found at Nortel LearniT (www.NortelLearniT.org) and the operation of a digital video camera. They may need to gain some experience with video editing software. It would be useful to have the students explore the training videos as they progress through the project.
Project
Students must coordinate and fully complete a 3 to 5 minute interview with an industry professional. Students should pick an interviewee, schedule a time and place for the interview, set up the appropriate equipment, carry out the interview, and finally finish the project with postproduction. This interview will be shown to the class for evaluation and peer-to-peer learning.
Assessment/Grading
An evaluation rubric has been included for this assignment. Refer to the Evaluation section, please.Time Management Tips
Break students in 2-4 person teams. Help teams brainstorm who they would like to interview. Teachers should approve interview subjects, assist students with research and writing questions, and help them checkout and troubleshoot video equipment.
Running short on time?
Have students pick an adult from their school to interview. Or if you are running short on equipment as well skip the postproduction or have it assigned as extra credit, and have the students do on camera editing.
Want to take this assignment another step?
Have students film extra “b-roll” (footage of professional in action) to illustrate the job of the professional.
Lesson Plan Details
Engage
There are many careers in the world; do you know every one of them? Or have you ever wondered what some professions actually entail? The best way to find out is to find someone in the profession and asked them about it.
This is your opportunity to find someone working a job in which you are interested, and ask them about it. You will coordinate and conduct a 3-5 minute interview with an industry professional.
And, you can share what you find out with your classmates by taping and editing the interview into a finished production.
CHECK OUT SOME COOL EXAMPLES AT NORTELLEARNIT.ORG
Explore
Review Career Bytes interviews on the Nortel LearniT site (www.NortelLearniT.org).
You may also review the training videos on video production located on the Nortel LearniT site (www.NortelLearniT.org)
Using the Internet, research the interview subject as well as the subject’s chosen career and company. Use the questions below as a starting point for your interview. You should include some questions based upon your research that are specific to your interview subject. Set up the equipment needed during the interview.
Conduct and edit the interview.
Include title/concluding graphics and lower thirds where appropriate.
Be sure to dedicate time to every phase of this project, including pre-production, production, and post-production.
- Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
- What influenced you as a kid....sports, parents, teachers, other?
- What were your favorite subjects and hobbies when you were in high school and college?
- When did you know you wanted to go into business?
- When did you first become interested in this job?
- Can you tell us what a typical day in your office looks like?
- What college(s) did you go to? What did you study in college? When did you know you wanted to study this?
- Are there any particular additional steps you took to get where you are today?
- How did you pick the college you went to?
- What kinds of activities were you involved in or studied in high school?
- Is there something you did or studied in high school that you now know was valuable but at the time would not have thought so?
- Do you have kids? What career advice are you giving your kids?
- What are the top three decisions you made in your life to help you get to where you are today?
- How do you define success....what is success to you (personally and in your business life)?
- What is the most important technological device you use at work?
- How has the use of technology helped you in your day to day work?
- What advice can you give to students who are interested in your field of work?
- Young people all over the world need successful role models. Who were your role models and why?
Explain
Using the interview video captured, prepare a 3-5 minute interview focusing on the interview subject’s profession.
Prepare for your edit by watching the entire interview and deciding which questions and answers are most interesting. Edit your interview in an interesting and informative format, cutting out mistakes, uninteresting and/or boring stuff. Remember, the purpose is to educate students about a specific profession in a relatively short amount of time (3-5 minutes).
Design and include graphics to introduce the interview and the subjects on camera.
Evaluate
Evaluation Rubric
Level 1 (D) | Level 2 (C) | Level 3 (B) | Level 4 (A) | |
Content-Message Clarity | Content lacks clarity | Content is somewhat clear | Content is clear | Content is thorough and clear |
Technical Quality | The production looks poor/little effort made | The production was fair but still little effort was made | The production was good/a good amount of effort was made | The production was great and a lot of effort was made |
Interview Research Skills | Limited efficiency and provides no evidence of critical thinking to evaluate content | Somewhat efficient and uses some critical thinking to evaluate content what | Efficient and uses critical thinking to evaluate content | Efficient, thorough and uses critical thinking to evaluate content |
Interesting and Informative | The interview was uninteresting and uninformative | The interview was either interesting or informative but not both | The interview was both interesting and informative | The interview was very interesting and very informative |
Lower Third Titles and Graphics | There were no titles or graphics | There were titles and graphics but they were unrelated to the interview | There were both titles and graphics | There were a lot of titles and graphics and they fit well with the interview |
Group Participation | There was not full group participation | There was some group work | There was full group participation at times | The group worked together through the entire process |
Self Evaluation: What have you learned from this activity? Did working on the project get you thinking about any potential career choices.
Extend
Find two interview subjects who have similar professions, ask the subjects similar questions. Watch both of the interviews, then compare the answers given by the interviewees. Have the students brainstorm why the answers were so different or so similar.
If you have extra time before or after the interview film a few minutes of extra footage that illustrates what the interviewee is talking about or the subjects job entails. This will add new elements of interest to your interview and make it something other than just two people talking about technology and career paths.
Something that can be done before or after the interview is having the host use his or her introduction they wrote earlier in the class and recite it at a separate location than that of the interview. (i.e. outside of the office building, in a studio)