Fostering well-being in my career development

This project kit aims to promote awareness about wellbeing in learners’ careers and reap the benefits of international collaboration and interculturality.

male mechanic teacher and a group of students smiling

This project kit aims to promote awareness about wellbeing in learners’ careers and reap the benefits of international collaboration and interculturality. Through engaging and interactive activities on careers and wellbeing, young learners will connect with peers, express their thoughts and collaborate in a supportive and inclusive environment.

Objectives

foster IVET learners’ career literacy
promote self-awareness and social awareness
develop positive relationships with others
enhance wellbeing and resilience

Introduction of partners

Wellbeing vision boards

Teachers introduce the significance of career wellbeing, focusing on its impact on job satisfaction and productivity, and consider physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing. Teachers lead a visualisation exercise in which learners imagine their ideal work life, focusing on job satisfaction, work-life balance, relationships, personal growth and overall happiness. They then ask learners to create a digital vision board (using Padlet or Miro) of images, words and phrases that represent their wellbeing goals for their future careers. After completing their vision board, each learner creates a brief video presenting it and its significance, to be shared on TwinSpace. Teachers foster online group discussion, asking questions about common themes, ways to support each other and steps to achieving their wellbeing goals. Teachers conclude with a discussion, emphasising the importance of proactive wellbeing management and setting realistic goals.

Orientation

Career difficulties

Teachers ask learners to draw a line representing their life course and then mark each school class/work experience/period of their life. Then, they ask them to think about the difficulties they faced at each stage and note the way(s) they managed them. They are asked to reflect on the support they would need to better deal with such difficulties in the future and post their responses in the project’s TwinSpace. Learners read peers’ posts, identify which sources of support would be helpful for themselves and create a personal list of supporting strategies.

Communication

The sketch

Teachers ask learners to draw a sketch with their eyes closed and the hand that they usually don’t use for writing, and take a picture of it. Then, ask them to turn the sketch into a meaningful artifact; learners can use the hand that they usually write with, have their eyes open and use coloured markers. Learners take another picture and reflect on the following questions:

what might this sketch mean for you?
why did we draw the sketch with our eyes closed and with our non-dominant hand?
what does your attempt to turn the sketch into a meaningful artifact reveal?

Teachers encourage learners to share their pictures and thoughts on TwinSpace, read their peers’ posts and have online group discussions.

Collaboration

Finding balance

Teachers ask learners to share one thing they do to relax and de-stress; they pair the learners and assign each international pair a specific aspect of work-life balance (e.g. time management, stress reduction, setting priorities). They are asked to research effective strategies and practical tips, and prepare a brief presentation/poster (using Prezi, PowerPoint, Canva) to share with their peers. Each pair presents their findings in an online meeting and after each presentation, teachers open the floor to questions and encourage learners to share relevant personal experiences.

Building resilience

Teachers start with a brief discussion of the importance of resilience and adaptability in career development. They ask learners to identify personalities or professionals who have demonstrated resilience and adaptability in their careers and initiate discussion on the significance of coping with challenges, setbacks and changes in life and work, and then divide learners into small international groups provided with a list of resilience-building strategies. They are asked to discuss and prioritise the strategies based on their relevance to potential situations and record their top three strategies on Miro.

Career harmony

Teachers ask learners to reflect on their future career choices by considering their personal values, interests, skills and aspirations, and form small international groups provided with a collaborative tool (e.g. Padlet, Google Docs). The groups brainstorm and list contributing factors to their job satisfaction and fulfilment. Each group presents their findings in an online meeting during which teachers encourage questions and cross-group comparisons.

Teachers ask learners to form international groups; each group is asked to produce an e-book (using Issuu) with their activity outputs, to be shared with their peers beyond the eTwinning project.

Evaluation & Assessment

Navigating workplace challenges

Teachers create different workplace conflict scenarios relevant to learners’ fields of study/future careers. They then ask learners to analyse these case studies, identify the root causes of the conflicts and encourage them to discuss possible solutions and strategies based on the knowledge they acquired during the project. Finally, teachers have each learner create a personal action plan, outlining how they will manage these conflicts and encourage them to reflect on the benefits of conflict resolution to their wellbeing.

Follow up

Wellbeing day

At the end of the project schools organise an online event, “Fostering wellbeing in my future career”. Learners present their e-books to other IVET learners and teachers, and implement one activity from the eTwinning project.

Additional information

Age from:

15
Age to:

20+
Difficulty:

Intermediate
Education type:

Vocational Education and Training
Target audience:

Teacher

Student Teacher

Head Teacher / Principal

Teacher Educator
Target audience ISCED:

Upper secondary education (ISCED 3)

Fostering well-being in my career development

Additional information

School subjects

Key competences