Can you relive the moment of being in 12th Grade with 3 months to go before graduation? You have participated in many job fairs and classroom explorations throughout your educational journey, including career skill surveys. For many years, education departments and school districts have been constantly designing workforce preparation blueprints to ensure our students are prepared for careers with the ability to apply effective career skills. Could it be effective for education departments and school districts to equip our students with an understanding of the difference between a job and a career? Perhaps educators and school stakeholders can implement engaging ways for students to be prepared using more visual instructional methods to determine what specific career skills are needed depending upon the desire. 

Many instructional methods provide visual career skills, whether it is in secondary or postsecondary. One instructional strategy that I have used in my classroom that helps students model career skills is Game-Based Learning Simulations. As an educator, many of you might be thinking of how expensive some of the career simulations may be. Many of the simulations are budget-friendly, and many students already have access. For example, there is Madden 24. It is an Electronic Arts Company that produces sports games on platforms such as Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, and other platforms. It offers many visual career opportunities, such as experiencing owning a team franchise. According to Electronic Arts, they experienced a 6% increase and a double-digit growth in weekly average users. This simulation game can be used as a final capstone or final exam project for students who may be interested in the Sports Management career field. The chart below displays some career skills used while engaging in the Franchise Mode.  

Is it possible that this is an alternative approach to preparing our students whether secondary or college with effective and everlasting employability skills? Ask yourself as an educator, “Can I use Employability Skills Using Game-Based Learning as a tool for students to visually display their employability skills within my classroom?”

---

Contributor
 
Mckale Jones
Georgia CTAE Business Teacher
Clarke County School District (Athens, GA)
Email: jonesm3@clarke.k12.ga.us

Mckale Jones has 11 years of classroom experience with the focus on students applying daily Business Technology Content lessons within society. His tenure in the classroom includes multiple hands-on instructional strategies that produce a high level of engagement from all students. He has presented at the Georgia's CTAE Field of Dreams Conferences, the 2024 National Business Education Conference, SREB Conference, and other conferences by providing CTAE/CTE Pathway Teachers with cutting-edge Game-Based Learning Strategies that will ignite students’ curiosity about career development skills. Mr. Jones believes that learning connects to a student's career desires and provides an opportunity for the student to define their career path.