How Our Customers Use The Workplace Skills Series

The Workplace Skills Series is used in traditional semester or quarter classes. These classes are typically in the business or speech departments. Some common course titles are, "Business Communications," "Human Relations in Business," "Workplace Communications."

The series is also used in short 6-8 week classes. These are often part of a specific certificate or vocational program such as office administration or medical assistant careers. Some common course titles are, "Office Communication Skills," "Problem Solving Skills For Medical Careers," "Teambuilding Skills for Electronic Technicians."

Most of our community college customers adopt The Workplace Skills Series for an existing course. However, some customers need to create a new course. Approval processes for new community college courses require significant amounts of documentation. Work Skills Associates keeps on file the documentation used by a number of its community college customers for course approval. We are more than happy to provide these documents to you to aid in your approval efforts.

One of the primary needs of our welfare-to-work customers is modularity. The Workplace Skills Series can be broken up into a series of short 2-4 hour workshops.

Welfare-to-work customers often encounter sporadic student attendance. Because the material can be broken into independent short modules, students do not need to take workshops in a specific order. This scheduling flexibility increases the likelihood students will complete a program or series of workshops.

The writing style of the material is another key feature particularly advantageous to our welfare-to-work customers. The concise explanatory text, interesting pictures, and real world situations engage students who might be intimidated, overwhelmed, or bored by a traditional theoretical curriculum.

Most of our adult school customers use the curriculum in traditional semester or quarter classes.

Some of our adult school customers also break the material into a series of short 2-4 hour workshops. Because the material can be broken into independent short modules, students do not need to take workshops in a specific order. This is especially advantageous for open entry/open exit arrangements.

Most of our vocational school customers have their departments organized by occupation. Some schools will have at least one teacher fully trained to teach The Workplace Skills Series in each of the occupations they offer. Since the instructor is also an expert in that respective occupation, he or she is able to create and discuss occupation-specific situations where the skills will be utilized.

Other vocational school customers utilize "the rover" approach. One or two teachers from the school are fully trained to teach The Workplace Skills Series. These teachers visit the classrooms of different occupations on a rotating basis. On the days where the "rover" teacher visits, the other teacher who usually teaches the occupation is either given release time, or stays in the classroom and augments the instruction with occupation-specific anecdotes or examples.

Most of our high school customers use the material in a semester class. Course titles include, "Business Communications," or "Workplace Skills."

Some high school customers will use the material intermittently within an existing curriculum. For instance, an English teacher may choose to teach The Workplace Skills Series material once a week over the course of an entire school year, or for an entire week once a month.

One of the most innovative and effective ways The Workplace Skills Series is used is as a "Freshman Survival Skills," or "Freshman Study Skills" course. Every freshman is required to take this semester course. This is a very powerful method for creating culture within a high school. The concepts in the course set the standard for how students are expected to communicate with each other, resolve conflicts, work on teams, and address problems.

The curriculum also has a Team Project Module. This module, to be used after the communication, teambuilding, and problem solving concepts have been taught, puts students in teams to solve actual school problems. The students experience firsthand the challenges encountered by any workplace team trying to solve a problem. The projects also have the effect of creating ownership for real problems on campus. The teacher's edition of Teambuilding and Problem Solving In the Workplace has detailed instructions on how to structure and evaluate these student project teams.

WIA programs are structured in many different ways, but one of the most common needs is for modularity and scheduling flexibility. The Workplace Skills Series can be broken up into a series of short 2-4 hour workshops. Because the modules can be taught independently, students do not need to take workshops in a specific order. This scheduling flexibility increases the likelihood students will complete a program or series of workshops.