Employability Soft Skills Superpower

Standards

Enduring understanding and essential question

Big idea: Hard skills get you the interview. Soft skills get you the job and keep it. You are already practicing both in this room every time you take a lab role.
Essential question: If two people can both do the job, why does one get hired and the other get sent home?

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. (Low) Given the list of six employability skills employers name most (reliability, communication, teamwork, problem solving, adaptability, honesty), define each in their own words and give one example of what it looks like at work.
2. (Mid) Using this year's lab roles, the Silent Measurement Challenge, and the Investor Challenge as evidence, rate themselves 1 to 4 on each of the six skills and support at least four ratings with a specific example.
3. (High) Choose one skill to grow, write a three-part growth plan (where I will practice it this year, what I will do differently, how I will know it worked), and defend the choice in one sentence.

Vocabulary

Tier 2 (general academic): reliable, adapt, evidence, rating
Tier 3 (FACS): employability, hard skill, soft skill, work ethic, professionalism. See the unit vocabulary list for Turkish, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Materials and setup

• Devices for the trading window (one per student or one per pair, as Topic 2.4 has been running it); the ClassroomStreet dispatches for today's Round 2 window block loaded, windows 41 to 47 [Sal: Round 2 is the same board, same account, same rules, after the reveal; set the dispatch and the timer before class]
• Each student's Investor Journal (Handout 02.14 - Investor Journal.md), open to the Round 2 lines
• Handout, one per student: Handout 02.20 - Soft Skills Self-Rating and Growth Plan.md
• Slides: Slides 02.20 - Employability Soft Skills Superpower
• The lab role cards from Unit 1 (Handout 01.08 - Role Cards Lab 1.md) on the document camera or one printed set on the board, so students can point at the role they held
• Timer visible to the class
• Setup notes: write the do now on the board before students walk in. Have the six-skill slide up and covered. Pull two or three real job ads from a local employer's site the night before and highlight the soft skill words (for example "reliable," "team player," "communicates clearly"); the ads are the proof that this is what employers actually write. [Sal: pick employers your students recognize: a supermarket, a hospital, a restaurant group, the town.]

Pre-assessment

The do now is the pre-assessment. Most students name a hard skill first ("she is a good cook," "he knows computers"). Count how many name a soft skill without being asked. That number tells you how long Step 2 needs. Also look back at the Investor Report reflections from Lesson 2.19: students who wrote about a partner problem already have evidence for the teamwork row.

Do now and hook (Time: 3 min)

On the board: "Think of the best worker you know. A relative, a coach, someone at a store or a restaurant. Write two things they do that make them good at their job. One sentence each."

Debrief: cold call four students; write the answers in two columns without labeling them (one column for things about the task, one for things about how they treat people and handle problems). Then the hook: "Everything in the second column, employers say they cannot teach. And it is the reason people get hired, promoted, or fired. Today you find out how much of it you already have."

Procedure

Questions to ask

Monitor understanding:

• Is "knows how to use a knife" a hard skill or a soft skill? What about "cleans as they go without being asked"?
• Which of the six skills did the Silent Measurement Challenge test hardest? Why that one?
• What is the difference between a rating and evidence?

Deepen learning:

• Why would an employer say they can teach hard skills but not soft skills? Do you agree?
• Which of the six skills is hardest to show in one interview? How would you prove it anyway?
• You were Head Cook and your Prep Cook stopped working. Which skill were you using when you handled it, and did it work?

Check for understanding

Clipboard checklist during Step 3: for each student, a yes or no on "rating has evidence," "evidence is a real event from this year," and "evidence matches the skill it is under." A student with three yeses on two rows is ready for the growth plan. A student whose evidence is "I am good at it" gets the model sentence read aloud again at their desk.

Closure (Time: 4 min)

Exit card, three lines: the skill I rated highest and my evidence; the skill I am growing and where I will practice it; one soft skill I saw a classmate use today. Three students read the third line aloud (naming the skill, not the classmate). Sort the cards into "got it" and "needs more"; a "needs more" card has a rating with no event behind it, and that student gets a one-minute check at the start of Lesson 2.21.

Differentiation and supports

• ELL: the six skills on the slide have a picture each (a clock for reliability, two speech bubbles for communication, a huddle for teamwork, a puzzle piece for problem solving, a road with a detour for adaptability, a handshake for honesty); the handout carries the six words in Turkish, Portuguese, and Spanish (see Vocabulary 02.md); sentence starter for evidence: "In ___ (lab or game), I ___." Pair with a partner who can point to the role card.
• IEP and 504 (general): four evidence rows required, not six; the rating scale printed as four faces as well as four numbers; extended time by finishing the growth plan as the do now tomorrow; a student may dictate evidence to a partner who writes it.
• Grade 6 support: rate four skills (reliability, communication, teamwork, honesty), with evidence for two; the growth plan is two parts (where and what I will do).
• Grade 8 stretch: add a seventh row for a skill the student names from the job ads (for example "attention to detail") and rate it; the growth plan names a measurable sign ("the Station Manager checks my station once, not three times"); one paragraph on which of the six skills matters most in the career from their top three (previews Lesson 2.21).
• UDL checkpoint used: multiple means of representation (the six skills as words, pictures, and real job ads) and multiple means of action and expression (evidence can be written, dictated, or pointed to on a role card).
• No-device alternative for the trading window: run the window block on paper, the same way Topic 2.4 does on a Wi-Fi-down day. Read the dispatch aloud, put the window's prices on the board from the paper price table (Days 10 to 12 for Round 2), and students record trades on Handout 02.19 - Paper Ledger.md; the trading partner checks the math and the Station Manager of each table hands the sheets in. The Round 2 journal line is written either way.

Assessment

The topic's formal check is the career research card in Lesson 2.22. The Unit 2 Test in Lesson 2.22 checks the six skills (items 17 and 18).

Homework

None. Optional: ask an adult who works, "What gets people fired where you work?" Bring the answer in one sentence. It is almost always a soft skill.

Connections

Inside the building: the guidance counselor, who sees the same six skills on the working papers application and on every recommendation form; FACS gives guidance a class that can name its own skills with evidence, and guidance gives FACS the working papers process for Lesson 2.22. Community: a local employer who hires teenagers (a supermarket manager, a camp director) for a five-minute visit or a two-line quote on what they look for.

Sources

• NYS Middle Level CTE FACS Content Module 01, Individual Growth and Life Readiness (nyctecenter.org, June 2018), line 3. a). Copy in 02 Standards/NYS Module PDFs/.
• NYS Middle Level CTE Theme Module 01, Career and Community Opportunities, lines 3. c) and 3. d). Same folder.
• NYS Learning Standards for Health, Physical Education, and Family and Consumer Sciences (1996), Standard 3, Intermediate, FACS strand. Wording per 02 Standards/STANDARDS SOURCES - web research.md, section 2.
• NYS CDOS Standard 3a, Intermediate, Personal Qualities. Same file.
• National Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences Education 3.0 (LEAD FCS Education, 2018), competency 1.2.8.
• Sal's own materials: the Brentwood packet "Soft Skills Superpower: The Skills Every Job Needs" (Unit 2 Career Exploration, April 2026). The self-rating table and the "companies hire for hard skills and fire for soft skills" line come from it. The twelve-skill list is cut to the six employers name most; the word search is dropped.

Teacher notes

• If the trading window runs long (it will if the dispatch is a crisis follow-up), cut Step 5 and take the pair question as the first line of tomorrow's do now. Never cut Step 3; the evidence rule is the whole lesson.
• Common mistake: students rate every skill a 4. The fix is not a lecture; it is "show me the event." A 4 with no event becomes a 2 on the sheet.
• Common mistake two: students choose their weakest skill to grow and pick a place to practice it that is months away. Push them to the next lab or the next group task, not "high school."
• The job ads matter more than the slide. Students believe an employer's own words. [Sal: your Brentwood packet said 75 percent of career success depends on soft skills; that figure is repeated widely without a solid source, so this lesson uses the job ads as the proof instead of the number.]
• Keep the self-ratings. They come back in Unit 7 (Lesson 7.1) when the same students write the three-part resume bullet; the evidence sentences from today are the bullets.