Professionalism

The Professionalism curriculum moduleprovides an overview of professionalism, including clothing and personal care, behaviors, executive functioning skills, collaboration and teamwork, ethics, and integrity. Students identify how they can express their personal style within professional practices. They also evaluate the effectiveness of employees and practice dealing with workplace situations, including harassment, discrimination, and bullying.

Phase 1: Explore

Activity: Who Gets the Job?

In this activity, students read a scenario and then answer questions about the professionalism of two people interviewing for a job.

Phase 2: Learn & Practice

learn-and-practice

Unit 1: Presence

This unit introduces professional appearance and conduct. Students start by exploring professional attire, basic hygiene, and healthy habits. They describe how personal style and body art play a role in appearance. Students then explore professional conduct by identifying aspects of a positive attitude, describing commitment, and practicing respectful communication. Finally, students explain why a growth mindset is essential for success.

Lessons
  1. Appearance
  2. Conduct
  3. Quiz

Unit 2: Executive Function

This unit reviews the importance of executive function. Students investigate the mental processes important to functioning in a professional environment, including self-regulation, working memory, and flexible thinking. They describe the organizational skills essential to professionalism. They learn the importance of prioritization, explore time-management skills and tools, and explain the steps in the problem-solving process.

Lessons
  1. Mental Processes
  2. Organizational Skills
  3. Quiz

Unit 3: Collaboration

This unit will prepare students to demonstrate professionalism by using collaboration skills to be an effective team member and leader. Students will describe the characteristics of an effective team, review team roles, and explain how to resolve conflicts. They will identify characteristics of effective leaders in addition to differentiating between different leadership types. Students will also learn to set SMART goals, make leadership decisions, and practice selecting candidates for specific team roles.

Lessons
1. Teamwork
2. Leadership
3. Quiz

Unit 4: Workplace Integrity

This unit introduces the importance of inclusive and ethical workplaces and confidentiality. Students differentiate between workplace harassment, discrimination, and bullying and explain the importance of adhering to legal regulations regarding inclusion and confidentiality. Students explore different types of confidential information and explain how they can protect it.

Lessons
  1. Inclusion
  2. Confidentiality
  3. Quiz

Phase 3: Reflect

reflect

Activity: Reflection Questions and Discussion

This activity provides an opportunity for students to reflect and apply module learning to real world situations.

Phase 4: Reinforce

Activity: Explaining Legal and Ethical Responsibilities

This activity gives students practice identifying and reporting workplace bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Students review workplace scenarios, decide whether to report the offense, and explain their reasoning.

Activity: Handling Confidential Information

This activity provides students with practice identifying different violations of confidentiality and finding resolutions to these violations. Students will collaborate with group members to describe a violation and recommend a solution. Groups will present their findings by creating a poster or acting out the scenario.

Activity: Preparing for Your Dream Job

This activity allows students to apply what they've learned about the different aspects of professionalism to their dream job. Students will describe their own dream job and share with a partner. Partners will then interview each other regarding how they plan to practice professionalism in their job.

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