Lesson 2: Work Preferences
This lesson focuses on defining workplace preferences and understanding how preferences can guide career development. Students will identify their workplace preferences.
Objectives
- Define the term preference and understand how preferences can influence our job choices.
- Select some of their workplace preferences and identify jobs that match their preferences.
Materials
- Instructor Presentation: Lesson 2 Work Preferences (Powerpoint)
- Student Workbook: My Job Exploration Workbook Lesson 2 (Powerpoint)
- Knowledge Check: Lesson 2 Pre-Check and Post-Check (PDF)
- Digital whiteboard to record student responses
Expanding Your Knowledge
These optional activities and resources can reinforce lesson objectives in the home, engage families, or supplement classroom instruction.
Choosing a Work Schedule
Watch this short video, "How to Choose a Work Schedule" from Adulting on the Spectrum's free Life Skills video series to help students consider preferences when choosing when to work.
Career Check Activity Sheet
This activity sheet from the Virginia Career View website allows students to mark their work preferences, helping them identify potential career options.
My Job Preference Sort
Print out or show pictures to students of different work settings and tasks. Ask them to sort them based on their likes and dislikes. Have students compare their "like" pile to their workplace preferences in their Lesson 2 workbook.
Using Work Preferences to Learn More about Jobs
Plan one experience in students' home, school, or community to help them learn about a job that matches their preferences. Students can learn more about jobs by interviewing or shadowing someone with that job, volunteering, joining after-school clubs, or community activities.
Additional Resources
These additional resources support the content in the Pre-ETS Toolkit and provide even more ways to help students plan for the future.
Employment Support Indicator
This document provides a guide for assessing and planning employment support for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, developed by the Center for Learning and Leadership at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
The Choicemaker Self-Determination Curriculum
This curriculum includes a unit titled Choosing Employment Goals. It contains flexible lessons that teach students to reflect upon their experiences, draw conclusions about themselves, and learn about community opportunities that match their interests and skills.
Jumpstart
This website developed by the Australian government, includes workplace preference assessments based on three domains: interactions, environments, and tasks. The website provides a downloadable PDF file for each of these domains.