It’s Not a Mystery!
Teaching Students to Solve Career Problems
Introductions
Keley Smith-Keller, Ed.D. – Assistant
Director, Postsecondary Education – SD
Division of Career & Technical Education
 Megan Tatum – SDMyLife/Student
Services Specialist – SD Division of
Career & Technical Education

What We’ll Talk About Today
Identify exactly what career decision
making is
 Introduce CTE/SDMyLife Career
Decision Making Guide
 Put the guide to work

Career Decision Making Sometimes
Looks Like This….
Career Decision Making Defined
Process of making informed career
choices
 Decisions may include, or be based upon,
any of the following:

 Interests, abilities, skills, and values
 Observations from the workplace or by watching
parents/role models
 Collecting information and conducting research
 Belief in ones abilities (self-efficacy)
Career
Decision
Making is a
ProblemSolving
Process –
Like Solving
a Great
Detective
Mystery!
Cognitive Information Processing
Career Decision-Making Model
CIP theory describes career decision making as a problem-solving activity. In this view, if
students can master specific problem-solving steps, they can identify and solve careerrelated issues throughout their lives. Much like a recipe, this approach involves several
ingredients:

Self-Knowledge: What are my skills, interests, abilities, values and personality traits?

Occupational Knowledge: What are my options, which complement what I know about
myself?

Decision-making Skill: How do I make important decisions?

A Healthy Executive Processing Domain: What are my meta-cognitions? In other words, in
what kind of self-talk do I engage when I think about making important decisions? What is
my self-efficacy - my belief in myself, based on a positive, but accurate, self-assessment?
A Visual of the CIP Model
Content





Self-knowledge (SDMyLife
Career Matchmaker)
Occupational knowledge
Awareness of
postsecondary Education
options
Decision-making style
(rational, intuitive)
Self-talk
Process



The “action part” of doing
career decision making
The “what-to-do-with-thecontent” step
Tools for this include
SDMyLife Personal Learning
Plan and the new Student
Career Decision Making
Guide and Parent’s Guide
Difference Between Career
Content and Career Process
The New SDMyLife Tools
Let’s Try It Out!
Activity
 Remember the decision-making steps:

1. Know what you need to do (make a decision)
2. Understand your options – elaborate and expand
options, before valuing the choices and prioritizing
alternatives
3. Make a choice
4. Follow through
5. Believe in yourself!
A Final Thought
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[email protected] – 605-773-4726