This assignment will introduce you to one career possibility as you explore the field of early childhood education. There are multiple sections to this assignment. Read the entire assignment carefully before completing!
Identify one possible career from the list below that you might be interested in that involves working with children and families.
Career choices include:
• Early childhood teacher (working with children under 5 yrs.)
• Transitional Kindergarten teacher
• Kindergarten teacher
• Elementary school teacher
• High school teacher
• College professor
• Special education teacher
• Early Intervention Specialist
• Speech and Language Pathologist
• Child Life Specialist
• Family and Marriage therapist
• Child Psychologist
• Social worker
• *Other—If you have another career in mind that is not listed here, you MUST first get it approved by the instructor. Send e-mail to instructor for approval.
Personal Interview or Academic Research (You Choose)
Do some research on this career and in your research you are looking to answer the following questions about the career. Copying and pasting answers from websites is not enough here! I can look at websites myself and that is plagiarism (cheating!). Instead, I want you to fully respond to these questions by providing the research information and making sure it is relevant to our geographic area as well as the academic preparation you can receive in this area. Provide enough information for it to be clear to the reader (me!) that you have taken care and thought into the assignment. Alternatively, you can find someone who works in the area of interest to interview and include their responses in part I as a question and answer transcript. In any interview you need to provide enough information to encourage the interviewee to keep talking and do not accept yes/no responses as this will significantly impact your grade.
PART I:
Begin by providing an opening paragraph where you introduce your reader to the career you are hoping to enter and the specific job related information you discovered in your research. Then provide detailed responses to the following questions with citations from your research.
What skills are needed for this job?
What academic preparation (degree/units) is needed for this job?
What professional experience would is needed for this job?
What is the salary range for this type of job?
What are the job duties? What does a typical day look like?
Search for job openings in California –particularly where you want to work! You might want to start by checking out MSJC’s Jobspeaker Links to an external site.
Describe the job announcement and the organization. Is this a job you would want to apply for if you met the qualifications? Explain your answer. (This should be at least a full paragraph response. )
a. Based on the research you conducted, what would you most like about this particular job?
b. Based on the research you conducted, what would you least like about this particular job?
Where was the closest job opening for this job? Were there a lot of jobs in the area of interest?
Part II : Reflections Paper
Explain what you learned about this career in a 2 page reflection paper. This should be in paragraph form and should include responses to the following prompts. Do NOT include the questions in the paper–just use them as your guide to write your paper!
Are you still interested in this career? Why or why not?
What qualities do you have that would make you successful in this career?
What did you learn about the career?
im going back to school to be a teachers aid
