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Career Awareness and Exploration

Overview

Oregon is committed to providing career exploration opportunities for our students through Career Connected Learning (CCL). Career awareness and exploration allows students to explore and assess their academic and workplace skills. This is important as they explore their aptitudes and interests, and plan for the future. Parents and mentors play a key role in career exploration—in fact, research shows that parents have the greatest influence on their children's career choices.


Career Connected Learning Resources

The CCL team at the Oregon Department of Education, the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, and the CCL System Navigators have partnered with education service districts and professionals around the state to create a suite of Career Connected Learning tools. These CCL resources are designed to provide parents, mentors, educators, industry leaders and community based organizations with tools to help students navigate learning about—and preparing for—a career of their choice.

These tools and resources are designed to help students expand awareness of careers and identify their interests and strengths that could lead to success in those careers. Some resources support student exploration of various career fields and help students identify the employability skills required for success. Other tools help students navigate the transition from K-12 to their future goals. Check back often to find the tools that can help you!

If you have questions about any of these opportunities, please contact Beth Molenkamp at ODE for more information.


Oregon Employability Skills/OES logo  

Oregon Employability Skills

OES is a suite of curriculum addressing the 10 skills identified as essential to employment success in Oregon by a Workforce and Talent Development Board (WTDB) report. It is available for first grade through adult/workforce. This curriculum supports learners' introduction to skills, applying them to their own lives and reflecting on how they use them in their school or work. The curriculum is available fully in Spanish and Russian, with supporting documents in other languages. There is an eLearning version as well. Learners can also earn badges which can then be shared with potential employers.

Career Connect Oregon.ORG/CCL logo  

Career Connect Oregon

This website serves as a resource and communication hub to support learners, teachers, families, and business and industry partners in learning more about careers in Oregon. It hosts a variety of resources and tools, including Sassy—the AI explorer. The regional pages provide opportunities for interested parties to connect and exchange ideas and strategies.

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Career Journeys Video Series

This video series supports learning about careers in an immersive, story-telling fashion. Enjoy the short videos that share the journeys of diverse young Oregonians from all around the state. Dive into the longer Q&A videos about their experiences and use the toolkit to create engaging lessons around the video series and career development. Each federally recognized tribe is represented by a young person sharing their story.


Career Connected Learning Virtual Courses Logo  

Career Connected Learning and Comprehensive School Counseling Virtual Courses

These two courses support educators through guided learning and toolkits to support the development of a CCL system or a Comprehensive School Counseling program that supports students and meets the requirements for Division 22. They are designed to support a team of educators who want to improve outcomes for students through CCL and CSC.


Career College Collaborative C3 logo  

Career, College Collaborative (C3)

C3 partnered with ODE to develop tools to support career education, including career journey maps that can be used by counselors, teachers, families and caregivers, and students to help learners identify their goals, strengths and interests, and craft a path forward to meet their career aspirations. Lessons in career education and preparation for postsecondary experiences were adapted from some used in Washington state to better meet the needs of Oregon learners. C3 also provides professional development to support educators in this related work.


Oregon Career Information System logo 

Oregon Career Information System (ORCIS)

ORCIS partnered with ODE to provide free and open access to districts. They also created new tools and features, including an elementary version of Oregon CIS. This is an amazing resource that will support students' learning, and house their work related to their Education Plan and Profile.


Team Oregon Build logo  

Team Oregon Build (TOB)

TOB's mission is to engage, educate and empower youth through hands-on construction and manufacturing projects. The initiative aims to provide pathways for career development in high-demand trades while addressing the urgent need for safe and sustainable housing. By encouraging partnerships among schools, industry professionals and community organizations, the program creates career-connected learning opportunities for students to develop technical proficiency, workforce readiness and essential employability skills. The initiative also supports disaster readiness and recovery, reducing housing insecurity by creating an inventory of safe shelters in the event of future disasters, and building resilient communities across Oregon. TOB can serve as a model to support student learning and address other sector priorities in the state.



CCL Information/Research