research a career assignment middle school

Career Exploration for Students and Kids (19 Free Resources)

By: Author Amanda L. Grossman

Posted on Last updated: December 29, 2023

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Teach students and kids about careers with these 19 free worksheets and lesson plans. Career exploration for students to do.

One of the most important reasons behind a formal education – besides teaching your students how to think for themselves – is to get kids ready to take on an engaging and exciting career.

And a career? Well, that’s the foundation to any person being able financially provide for themselves – what we call, financial independence.

That’s why I take a real interest in helping kids, tweens, and teens get the best fun career exploration activities resources out there.

So that one day, they can find a fulfilling job and be able to earn enough money to not only survive, but thrive.

Career Exploration for Students

What all is involved in career exploration for students?

To be honest, there’s a lot to cover here.

You want to provide fun and engaging activities for topics like:

• Understanding Careers : The foundational blocks of understanding how a person earns money, having a job versus working on a career, how to develop your career, etc.
• Career Interest Assessments : Which careers intersect a child’s natural abilities and a child’s interests?
• Career Investigation : What does a day look like when holding down a job in one of those career fields that interests a student? What’s the salary like? This can include activities in the classroom, research, and also shadowing.
• Skill Identification and Development : What skills do they need to pursue a job that interests them? What level of education would they need?
• Understanding How to Get Hired : Things like interviews, creating a resume, job searches, etc. are critical for students to know how to do.
• Career Stepping Stones : What steps can the student take right now (and before they graduate high school) in order to set themselves just a few steps closer to getting into that career field (i.e. internships, volunteer activities, writing a first resume (here are free teen resume templates ), type of afterschool/weekend jobs)?
• Income and Paycheck Management : Discussing how to not only manage a paycheck from a real-job, but also how to manage your career so that your income more than matches current cost of living needs. Also, going over paycheck taxes, pay type (salary, hourly, commissions), insurance, workplace retirement contributions, and other deductions.

Whew – that list wasn’t meant to overwhelm you.

Rather, I wanted to inspire you with what an important and life-changing topic you’re covering with your students and kids.

Plus, to outline some of the areas you can cover with these fun career activities and resources I’ve found for you, below.

Career Exploration for Kids – Free Career Assessments

First up, let’s talk about how to get your kids and students actually interested in career exploration activities.

There’s no better way to pique a student’s interest than to find out what THEY are most interested in learning about.

One way to do this is to start off your unit of study with free career assessments.

1. Truity.com Career Assessment

I spoke with the people at Truity.com, and they said a good age minimum to take their free career assessment is 14/15 years of age.

The test is free to take, plus you get a basic report with results. You don’t even need to have a student register for them to do this!

However, if you want to be able to view each of your student’s results, you’d have to sign up for a Pro account.

2. CareerOneStop’s Career Assessment

This free, 30-question career quiz from the U.S. Department of Labor will help a student figure out some possible career choices.

3. O*NET Interest Profiler

Another career assessment test sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor is O*NET’s interest profiler. There are 60 questions in total.

Psst: want even more career websites for students? Here's 14 career websites for high school students .

4. CommonLit Career Day at Pixie Academy

Age: 4th Grade

Here's a reading passage that's centered around some great career and job terms. The theme of the story is Pixie finding a new job.

Assessment questions and a teacher's guide are included.

Career Exploration Worksheets for Students

While I don’t recommend you center your entire career unit around career exploration worksheets, the ones below can definitely add to students discovering jobs, industries, etc.

1. Find Your “Right Now” Job

Suggested Grades: 6-8

Scholastic has some fantastic worksheets and lesson plans to help with career exploration for students.

In the “ Find Your Right Now Job ” worksheet, students will research jobs and apprenticeships around their area of interests to find two jobs that they could apply to (when they're a bit older).

2. Career Research Worksheet

Here’s a simple, one-page worksheet you can get for free with a free account on Teachers Pay Teachers.

It will help focus your student’s career research.

3. Career Family Tree

This free worksheet of fun career activities has an idea that I love – for students to create a family career tree. They’ll need to ask family members and do the research, which of course is a great way for kids to understand their loved ones even better (plus to learn a thing or two).

4. Classroom Job Application

With a free Teachers Pay Teachers account, get this simple classroom job application your students can fill out to “apply” for classroom jobs.

5. Earning Income Career Earning Worksheet

BizWorld has this free, simple worksheet to help your students research a career and salary information.

6. Collection of Career Exploration Worksheets (9-12 grades)

Here’s a bunch of different career activities and worksheets for grades 9-12 .

Worksheets include:

• Reality Check Worksheet
• Networking Bingo
• Speed Interviewing

Career Lesson Plans

Looking for more than just career preparedness worksheets?

Check out these enter career lesson plans, available for free.

Hint: many of them include both worksheets and videos.

1. National Retail Federation's Library

The National Retail Federation (NRF) has a program called RISE Up , a certifying program with curriculum that helps students and young adults get hired in the retail industry.

Check out the RISE Up classroom activities section to find lots of short videos from people actually in the retail industry, answering questions students might have and teaching students about their industry. It also includes a worksheet for each video.

2. PWC’s Earn Your Future Digital Classroom

Check out Level 3 (for Grades 9 – 12), Module Chart Your Course . It talks about:

• The relationship between education and careers
• The opportunity cost of pursuing additional education
• The importance of monetary and nonmonetary compensation when selecting a job

3. BizKid’s It’s a Job to Get a Job

Download an entire lesson plan for high schoolers that include topics like:

• Job search techniques
• Interviewing
• Adding value as an employee

4. NGPF's Career Unit

This is a full-year course, with the following units:

• Unit Plan & Assessments
• Career Basics
• Choosing a Career
• Workplace Skills
• Finding a Job
• Your LinkedIn Profile
• Resumes & Cover Letters
• Interviewing for a Job
• Outcomes of a Job Interview
• Starting a New Job
• Career Sucesss

5. Louisiana Department of Education's Virtual Workplace Experience

The state of Louisiana has come up with these free resources to help students explore careers in LA's highest-demand industries. These are project-based learning activities.

Honestly, there's a ton here.

They've broken it down into the following units:

• General Resources
• Portfolio Projects Resources
• Getting Started
• Healthcare and Pharmacy
• Automotive Service & Repair
• Construction Crafts/Skilled Trades
• Information Technology
• Advanced Manufacturing
• Transportation and Logistics
• Business Management and Finance
• Sales and Customer Service

Career Games for Kids

These career games for kids and teens create an engaging way to teach career awareness.

1. Career Charades

Age: 7-9 years

Students are asked to brainstorm lots of different careers (it's suggested that they can ask parents, grandparents, and others to come up with ideas ahead of time).

Each student writes these ideas onto a piece of paper, and everyone takes turns acting out a career while others try to guess what they're doing.

Great for better awareness about career options!

2. Claim Your Future

Students select different career paths, are given a typical salary, and then are given various spending choices. The amount of money they spend throughout the game is tracked so that they can see, and make any adjustments as needed.

3. The Payoff

Suggested Age Range: 14 years and older

Practical Money Skills has come up with another free online career game, and this time it's all about two teenagers trying to start up a business in a competitive atmosphere.

Students will have to evaluate business deals, learn how to grow their business, and how to overcome financial challenges in business and in life.

4. Auction Adventures – Auctioneer Career Game for Kids

Suggested Age Range: Grades 3-5

Being paid by commission is wayyyyy different than getting a salary (or, even, being paid hourly). You have to actually sell something to make any money!

This game has your students calculate their commission rates while, at the same time, learning about how auctioneers work in a variety of different places.

Here's a set of worksheets to go along with this game.

5. The Uber Game

Like it or not, the “gig economy” where people are not full employees of companies, but still accept gigs from them and earn a small or substantial amount of money on the side, seems to be here to stay.

So, kids should understand how this can fit into their career and money plans!

The Uber Game gives your teen a scenario, such as they have a $1,000 mortgage payment due in a week, and then asks them to try and earn enough money through accepting gigs in order to pay that bill.

Can they do it? Is it hard or easy? Can they sustain themselves on a gig job?

Psst: You’ll want to check out my 31 free personal finance homeschool curriculum , as some of the resources also have free career resources.

Career Research for Students

When students research a career, they need to look at it from several different angles before deciding if it’s possibly on their “Career Hitlist”.

Here are the different things to research for a career:

• Find Income information : Salary, or hourly pay? What’s the range? Do people have this as their only job, or do they need to supplement with a second job to “make ends meet” (i.e. pay all their bills plus save money each month)?
• Ask People and Watch Interviews : Your student will want to make sure a day in the life of a potential profession is something they’d actually be interested in. Interviewing current employees in a profession, or even watching videos where professionals are interviewed can be really helpful.
• Find Shadow Opportunities : Students can go shadow a job within your school district, or with a family/friend. Or, they can take part in a Take Your Child to Work day at their parent’s/aunt’s employer. 

Psst: Have you ever heard of CareerVillage ? Students can ask career-related questions and get them answered by professionals, for free! Students of all ages are accepted, and they’ll need to create an account (for free) to ask a question.

1. How to Research a “Day in the Life”

You want your students to feel what it’s like to be on the job in a career path they’re researching.

Help them to do this by:

• Career Biographies : There are a vast number of what I like to call career biographies that help a child understand what it’s actually like to pursue a certain career field. I’ve got an article on 22 career books for kids , broken down by age and profession type.
• Career Videos : These can be really helpful, particularly when funds don’t allow for school field trips. MyAmericanFarm.org has a great collection of 3 to 26-minute videos on all different types of agricultural careers . PathSource has an impressive collection of career interview videos. Kids Work! Has a nice collection of ca r eer videos for kids (Grades 3-8). You can also search YouTube for “Day in the Life of _______”.
• Career Shadowing : Career shadowing was quite cool when I was in high school. Students should be encouraged to shadow someone at their job, whether it’s a parent/family member, or even someone within the school district. Reach out to your principal, vice principal, administrative assistants, and anyone else working at your school district to see if you can set up some job shadowing to go along with your career unit.
• Career Interviewing : You could have your students brainstorm a list of interview questions for someone in a job they’re curious about, and then actually help them find a person to interview either by email or in person. Imagine what they could learn from the experience!
• Take Your Child to Work Day : My sister and I both took turns taking the train to Washington D.C. to my aunt’s, and then she would take us into her job at NBC for a “Take Your Child to Work Day”. It was SO neat! It’s really a perfect way to get a taste for what a day in a job looks like (not to mention, motivate a child to want to do better at school so they can get some of the cool positions they get to see). Here's how you can do take your child to work day activities .
• Career Videos : These can be really helpful, particularly when funds don’t allow for school field trips. MyAmericanFarm.org has a great collection of 3 to 26-minute videos on all different types of agricultural careers . PathSource has an impressive collection of career interview videos. Kids Work! Has a nice collection of ca r eer videos for kids (Grades 3-8).
• Career Articles : CommonLit has some Day in the Life career articles, such as A Day in the Life of an Astronaut . Also, ReadWorks has some of these articles.

2. How to Research Income Information

While it used to be difficult to figure out income averages for a career or job type, it’s quite simple nowadays thanks to some seriously great, free, resources provided by the Department of Labor.

Here’s a one-stop salary finder , where you enter the occupation and your location to get an idea of the average pay.

It also offers a listing of professions, so students can click around by career cluster (or category) and just explore.

Psst: another important thing to make students aware of through research? Are career projections. In other words, is an industry or job path they want to pursue growing, or are the jobs getting scarcer? Here’s a great resource from Workforce Solutions (for just the Houston-Galveston area, though it still drives the point home about the importance of this question) that shares percentages for various careers.

3. Lessons to Understand Paycheck Taxes and Deductions

EverFI has free financial literacy lessons for kids and students, and Lesson 3 is on income and taxes .

Students will be given different ideas about careers, as well as the pros and cons to each.

Career Projects for Middle School Students

Looking for a career project your middle school students will enjoy?

1. Middle School Exploratory Tasks

Kentucky's Department of Education has a really cool resource – a group of middle school career projects, broken down by 16 different career clusters (and 80 different career pathways within those clusters).

Not only that, but they have student work samples for each one!

There are projects and exploratory tasks for careers in:

• Agriculture
• Human Services
• … and ten others
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20 Career Activities For Middle School: Tech Integration, Events, And Resources

February 23, 2024 //  by  Shelley Uselman

If the question “what do you want to be when you grow up” leads to blank stares, then you’re in the right place! Middle school students are just beginning to recognize that they have a place in the world. Help them explore their potential through fun career activities!

These 20 middle school activities will help your students develop their own identities as they explore career choices. Many of the jobs they will have in the future are in fields that don’t yet exist; make sure to focus on building essential skills alongside career research.

1. 5 Reasons That Career Exploration Must Begin in Middle School 

This article has some excellent background on the challenges that high school graduates are facing when they leave school without a plan. For students who do have a plan, they began to formulate that plan during middle school. Take some time to read through the reasons why middle school career education is a must.

Learn More: Apprentice Learning

2. Middle School CTE Podcasts and Webinars

Check out this collection of podcasts and webinars that focus specifically on exploring Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs for middle school.

Learn More: Association for Carreer and Technical Education

3. Host a Career Day

Community members love to be part of local schools! Hosting a Career Day is a great way to build connections between your school and your community. Don’t forget to invite a well-known community figure to start it off!

Learn More: Sign Up Genius

4. Self-Reflection Activities

One of the great things about middle school students is that they start to see themselves as individuals. Before diving into career exploration activities, it is helpful to first get them thinking about their strengths and likes. This will help them when thinking about their career journey.

Learn More: MN Program of Study

5. Online Self-Assessment

This career clusters interest survey would be best for older middle school students who have already done some self-reflection on their skills and interests, or it could be used as a whole-class example of how to explore career clusters.

Learn More: Education Planner

6. Complete Middle School Program Resource

If you’re building a program from scratch, this entire career unit will provide everything you need! There are 36 lessons targeting 6th and 7th grade students. That’s enough to cover most of the school year!

Learn More: Exploring

7. Collaborative Job Shadow

This twist on traditional job shadowing uses a stuffed school mascot or another object. Parents take the object to work and take pictures while it “participates” in different job-related tasks! Once the object has explored a variety of careers, put together a bulletin board or other display to create career biographies within your community!

Learn More: The Creative Counselor

8. Reality Check

Do you want to live in a house or apartment? City or suburbs? Fancy car or public transportation? Once students make their choices, they’ll get the “reality check” of how much that lifestyle will cost! This works to show how decisions about careers can influence their future.

Learn More: Texas Reality Check

9. Occupational Posters

These posters can be downloaded and printed for use as career awareness activities. They are organized as career clusters and show a connection between careers. Chances are, there is a poster for a career that students have never heard of!

Learn More: Workforce Solutions

10. Claim Your Future Game

Available as a classroom or online game, this resource has students develop awareness about career options through different scenarios. In addition to asking about future financial goals, students are given an average salary and have to make decisions about career paths.

Learn More: Claim Your Future

11. Careers Taboo

A fun do-it-yourself career game is based on the popular board game “Taboo.” Students are given a topic from their college & career vocabulary that they must describe to their team, but there are specific words that can not be used. This is a great way to get kids thinking about different career pathways while having fun!

Learn More: Ms. Sepp’s Counselor Corner

12. My First Resume

Students struggle with how to describe their skills. Some middle school students may be looking at summer jobs and need to learn how to write a resume. This resource provides an example of what should be on the resume of a younger person, and how to format it appropriately.

Learn More: Money Prodigy

13. Career Day at Pixie Academy

While targeting elementary grades, this reading activity does a fantastic job of exploring how we can individually contribute to our community through the variety of jobs we have. This activity would work for 6th grade, or older middle school students could be paired with younger students.

Learn More: Common Lit

14. Scholastic “Jobs of the Future” 

Scholastic has published dozens of career readiness activities, recognizing that the jobs of today won’t necessarily be the jobs of tomorrow. Browse through the links to resources for a wide variety of tasks geared towards recognizing current occupation trends.

Learn More: Scholastic

15. Career Personality Profiler

Best for older middle school students, this fun career exploration activity approaches career paths by examining personality traits. Great for students who enjoy taking online personality quizzes!

Learn More: Truity

16. The Uber Game

It’s important for kids to learn about non-traditional forms of employment, such as the gig economy or freelancing. In this fun career planning game, players will explore whether or not they can make enough to pay the bills by working as an Uber driver.

Learn More: The Uber Game

17. Career Village

To quote their intro, “Career Village is a community where students can get free personalized career advice from real-life professionals.” This is a great resource for students who have career aspirations that don’t line up with what is usually explored. This website allows them to connect with real professionals in a wide variety of careers.

Learn More: Career Village

18. Take Your Child to Work Day

Originally designed as “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” to introduce more girls into the workforce, this annual event has evolved into an opportunity for all kids to experience what their parents or caregivers do on a day-to-day basis at work. This website covers one professional’s experience with this day, and also includes resources for those who work from home but still want to participate!

19. Career Research Worksheet

This worksheet is a great way to introduce career research. With easily-identified topics, students can quickly figure out what skills are needed, how much it pays, and most importantly, what opportunities for growth there are in their chosen field.

Learn More: Biz World

20. Earn Your Future

This final resource is another exploration for students around career education. In “Earn Your Future,” students work their way through modules that explore the different topics related to potential careers. The modules are organized by grade level, so you’re sure to find the topics you need!

Learn More: PwC Charitable Foundation

STEM Career Research Project for Middle School

• December 18, 2022
• Engineering , STEM
• Career Exploration , Engaging Lessons , Real World Connections

How do you inspire future scientists and engineers? Do your students know what careers are STEM careers and what it means to have a career in STEM? You can answer these questions and more with this multi-day STEM career project !

STEM Career Research Project

In this project, students will choose an engineering career to research. They will discover the job roles and responsibilities, possible work environments, education requirements, average salaries, helpful skills and traits, and projected job growth in that field. Then students will imagine a company that is looking to hire a person in that career field. They’ll examine real-world job postings and then design and create a “help wanted” poster for their chosen career. Next, students will present their work and learn about other careers in a gallery walk activity. Finally, they’ll complete an independent reflection activity.

This STEM career research project is independent and low-prep. Grab this resource today! You will save your prep time, and know your students will be engaged and inspired while learning about STEM careers.

What’s included in the STEM Careers Research Project?

This no-prep project includes everything you need for 3-5 days of engaging STEM activities, including: 

• Printable PDF, Google, and Easel versions of the student activities and worksheets
• A webquest that guides students to choose and research a STEM career
• Detailed guidelines and  templates for the “Help Wanted” job advertisement project
• A graphic organizer for capturing student learning during the Gallery Walk activity
• An independent reflection worksheet to be completed at the end of the project
• Embedded links to quality background research websites
• Detailed teacher notes for easy facilitation
• An easy-to-use grading rubric

What materials do you need?

You only need to provide printed or digital copies of the student worksheets and devices with internet access for research. 

How can you use the STEM career project in your classroom?

You can use the research project as a week-long study of STEM careers. You will open your students’ eyes to career options that they may have never before considered. This is a great introductory activity for your STEM class, and it can be used to celebrate National Engineering Week in February.

This STEM career project is also perfect for giving yourself a bit of a break when you are feeling burnt out or feeling frustrated with challenging student behaviors. For example, you could use the project to keep students engaged before a school holiday. You can also use the project to keep students learning when you have unusual schedules or low attendance due to field trips, testing, assemblies, or other interruptions. Or, you can leave the low-prep project as a multi-day STEM sub plan.

Looking for other STEM Career activities?

If you’d like more ideas for inspiring your students and teaching them about STEM careers, check out this blog post on exploring STEM careers !

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Career Exploration | Career Readiness | Middle School

Middle School Career Exploration: 8 Ways to Incorporate It In Class

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December 19th, 2022 | 7 min. read

Mike Cescon

With past experience in teaching, a couple of degrees in writing, and an upbringing immersed in medical jargon, Mike is positioned well to hear out the most common questions teachers ask about the iCEV curriculum. His goal is to write content that quickly and effectively answers these questions so you can back to what matters - teaching your students.

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When you introduce your middle schoolers to career exploration, they begin to see its relevance to their learning experience and start to connect their academics to career and college opportunities. If you interest them well enough, you can even equip them to make informed decisions on their future careers. 

But how do you broach the subject of middle school career exploration in class? What are some strategies you can use to introduce this critical topic to your students? 

In this article, you'll discover 8 ways you can incorporate middle school career exploration in your class:

• Have students create a career poster
• Create field trips to local businesses
• Offer career assessments
• Invite guest speakers to class
• Have students present on their ideal work environment
• Create a Career Scavenger Hunt
• Host a career day
• Have students interview friends or family members

By the end of this article, you should be equipped to use these strategies to get your students thinking about their future careers. 

1. Have Students Create a Career Poster

One way to get students thinking about their future careers is to assign them a career poster project. For this project, students will conduct research about a specific career path they have in mind. 

You can have students attempt to answer questions like: 

• What level of education is required for this career?
• What perks and drawbacks are there to working this career?
• What kind of salary can you expect with this career? 

Students can answer questions like these on their poster, while also incorporating their own artwork, or copying and pasting pictures from elsewhere. Consider having students hang up their posters in school hallways for extra fun!

The point of this project is to get students thinking about what careers they're interested in, and what it will take to attain those careers. 

2. Create Field Trips to Local Businesses

Another way to get your students thinking about their future careers is to conduct a field trip to a business or company near you. 

This strategy requires more preparation than some of the others on this list, since you'll have to reach out to a local business to see whether they'd be interested in hosting your students for a trip. Consider checking a company's website or speaking to an employee to see whether they offer tours.

Once you have permission from the company and a date set, it's only a matter of negotiating the details with your district so you can have everything prepared for the trip!

And if this seems like too much trouble, don't fret! There are existing programs in place to help you facilitate a career field trip or conduct a virtual one. BizTown , for instance, is a solid middle school career exploration program where you can take your students on a virtual tour and let them role-play as different workers and professionals to see what appeals to them. 

3. Offer Career Assessments

If you want to prime students to think about potential careers, then a good place to start is to find out what they're passionate about in the first place. This is where career assessments and interest questionnaires can be helpful! 

These assessments ask students questions about their passions, interests, and skills, in order to help them better understand their own personality, and the career field in which they may thrive. 

Some quality career assessments you can offer in class include: 

• Career OneStop Interest Assessment
• Truity's Career Test
• Your Free Career Test

There are dozens more career assessment options floating around on the web, however, so try looking for ones you think would suit your students best. Just be sure to remind them that these tests are meant to get them thinking more than anything else---their results won't necessarily determine the career field they actually enter!

4. Invite Guest Speakers to Class

Inviting guest speakers to class to showcase their careers is an engaging, informative way to demonstrate to students the career possibilities out there.

These professionals can be anything from emergency responders, to farmers, to the CEOs of small businesses. More than likely, though, you're better off reaching out to members of your local community to gauge their interest in speaking in your class. 

To ensure students engage with your speaker, it's a good idea to have some discussion questions ready for students to ask, including:

• What skills did they need to develop to earn their career?
• When did they first know this was the career they wanted?
• What is their life like now?

By asking questions like these, your students will gain valuable insight from your class speaker, that they can take and apply to their own career search. 

5. Have Students Present on Their Ideal Work Environment

Once you've got students thinking about their potential careers, an excellent next step is to have them consider what work environment would be ideal for them. Where would they like working every day? Would they prefer to work in an office, or outdoors? Would they want to travel for work, or remain at home? 

In addition to these questions, you can have your students ask themselves:  

• In what kind of work environment are you most productive? 
• Do you prefer a more formal workplace, or a more informal one? 
• Is the "work culture" of a workplace important to you? 
• Do you think your career of choice would have this ideal work environment? Why or why not?

Once they have answers for these questions, they can give a quick presentation at the front of class where they go over their ideal work environment and why they think it would suit them well. 

All in all, this activity is a great way to reflect on their own personalities, and what the realities of their chosen profession would be. 

6. Create a Career Scavenger Hunt

A career scavenger hunt can take many forms depending on the classroom. Some career scavenger hunts present students with a description of a career and them guess what career they're describing. Others have students look outside their classroom doors and windows and write down as many careers as they can see. 

No matter how they look, however, career scavenger hunts are a fun, simple way to open the eyes of your students to the career opportunities out in the world. To that end, consider incorporating one of the following in your class: 

• Explore Work's Career Scavenger Hunt
• Career Scavenger Hunts from Teachers Pay Teachers
• Transition's Bureau of Labor and Statistics Scavenger Hunt

If you want to try out a career scavenger hunt in your classroom, then these options will be a good place to start, offering a variety of tasks designed to quickly engage students. 

7. Host a Career Day

Hosting a career day is a good way to incorporate several of these middle school career exploration strategies together for your class.

During a career day, you focus the entire class period on career-themed activities, events, and projects in order to open your students' minds to career possibilities. 

Using the other strategies on this list, here's one itinerary for how your career day could look: 

• First, invite a guest professional to class, who can lecture your students on the ins and outs of their career, answering student questions all the while. 
• Next, split your students into two groups. Have half the class take part in a career scavenger hunt, while the other half takes a career assessment to determine what they're interested in and passionate about. 
• Lastly, have your students work on short presentations about what their ideal work environment would look like. For this activity, it might help to split them up into groups so they can work together with their peers. 

This is just one example of how your career day could look---using any of the strategies on this list and elsewhere, you can customize yours to best fit your classroom. Overall, the purpose of a career day is to hammer home to your kids the importance of thinking about and planning for their future careers. 

8. Have Students Interview Friends or Family Members

Often, students have people close to them who work exciting, interesting, or prestigious jobs. A great way to get them invested in career exploration is to have them interview these family members and family friends to learn more about their careers. 

Generally, students should go into their interviews with a recording device and a list of questions to ask. A few examples include: 

• What interested you in choosing this career?
• What skills do you use on the job?
• How does a day at your workplace generally look?
• What was the journey like, entering this career field?
• What advice would you give to someone looking to enter this field? 

After conducting the interview, students can present their findings to their class with a PowerPoint, or maybe create a career poster showcasing some of the information they gained from their family member. 

One of the best parts about this project is that it doubles as a way to develop students' interview skills, and teaches them the importance of networking from a young age. 

Career Exploration in the Middle Grades: Playbooks for Educators and Students

Middle grades educators have the exciting opportunity to interact with students at a pivotal time in their development. The middle grades are “the finding place” that invites young adolescents to be adventurous explorers. Career exploration is a cornerstone of this process and is associated with both positive educational and employment outcomes, keeps students engaged in school, and helps them develop a better sense of self.

That’s why ASA and AMLE have teamed up to create two playbooks that equip educators and young adolescents with roadmaps for effective career exploration. In the educator guide, you will find helpful resources like implementation guides, case studies, and program sustainability resource to help you map your journey from beginning initiatives to school-wide practice. In the student playbook, you’ll find a variety of activities and materials for use directly with kids to help them learn about themselves and think about their futures.

Templates and Resources

Teacher Action Guide

Are you a teacher ready to kickstart career exploration at your school? This guide provides a helpful checklist and guiding questions/tips to aid in your planning process.

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Counselor Action Guide

Are you a counselor ready to kickstart career exploration at your school? This guide provides a helpful checklist and guiding questions/tips to aid in your planning process.

School and District Leader Action Guide

Are you a school or district leader ready to kickstart career exploration at your school? This guide provides a helpful checklist and guiding questions/tips to aid in your planning process.

Sustainability Action Guide

All members of the team should plan with an eye toward sustainability. This guide provides a helpful checklist and guiding questions/tips to keep you on the right track.

Programming Year at a Glance

Mapping programming across the school year can help you visualize your program and support accountability. Completing this calendar template will help you keep tabs on your program goals and keep program objectives top of mind.

Download Template

Download Example

3 Year Program Goals

Programs are only as effective as they are sustainable. Using this worksheet to create three-year goals will help you prioritize outcomes and determine appropriate strategies and activities for programming.

Programming Outcomes Worksheet

Measuring and evaluating your program is key to sustained success. This worksheet offers a helpful step-by-step guide to establishing an actionable measurement approach.

Observations Form

You will want to draw from a variety of data sources to measure what is working well and what might need more attention. This observation form can help you collect data from a variety of perspectives to help inform program effectiveness.

Budget Expenses Form

Depending on the type of program you create, funding needs can vary significantly. This helpful budgeting form will help you visualize the total funds you will need to successfully execute your program.

Funding for Programs

Funding can be an important factor in helping to sustain or expand current programming to create new ones. This guide provides tips for standing out in a grant application and a list of possible sources of funding.

Components of a Grant Proposal

Many schools combine public funding with additional grant funds to support programming. This document was created to aid educators across roles in writing successful proposals.

Professional Development Planning

Professional development is crucial to program sustainability. This template will help you design professional development activities to support program implementation.

Case Studies

Every Day Should be Career Day

The bell sounded, signaling the start of another class period. I hear the girls behind me talking, purchasing an Air Heads candy from a classmate who secretly sold them. My favorite was the white Air Heads, and I was a loyal customer; savoring its sweet flavor was my only saving grace during math class. The

Read More… from Every Day Should be Career Day

Navigating a Critical New Frontier in K-12 Career Readiness: Middle School Work-based Learning

When you think of “work-based learning” — that is, hands-on career education experiences like internships, apprenticeships, and job shadowing — what age group comes to mind? Odds are, you’re thinking about college or perhaps even high school. But as research conducted by American Student Assistance shows, middle school is the prime time to begin engaging

Read More… from Navigating a Critical New Frontier in K-12 Career Readiness: Middle School Work-based Learning

Team Passion Project – The Importance of Offering Student Choice in the Middle Grades

Save the bees. That was the aim of Team Passion Project, the winners of the second annual Solve Together Challenge, a national competition designed to encourage career exploration and skill-building for middle school students. The team, comprised of seventh grader from Franklin Avenue Middle School, could either select from a list of real-world problems or

Read More… from Team Passion Project – The Importance of Offering Student Choice in the Middle Grades

ASA’s Middle School Exploration Program

Free digital ten-lesson curriculum in which students can discover their skills and interests, learn about career clusters, and explore different educational options. Students will leave this program with a better understanding of how to approach decisions regarding their future plans, their skill development, and their career preferences.

Exploring Self

Unit 1 (Lessons 1-4):  Through a range of individual and group-based activities, students will explore their own skills, interests, values, and learning styles in relation to others’. By the end of the unit, each student will be able to confidently summarize their own strengths, passions, and attributes.

Understanding Options: Career Exploration

Unit 2 (Lessons 5-7):  Now that students understand themselves, they will begin to envision their futures and learn about careers that align with their goals. Games, sorting activities, and presentations fuel the exploration process, helping students gain a clearer picture of the man professional possibilities available to them.

Informing Future Decisions: Education Pathways

Unit 3 (Lessons 8-10):  Does every career require a college degree? Students will look at all the post-secondary options available –including college—and discover how to prepare for next steps after high school. Every student will leave understanding their strengths, programs that fit their goals, and growth areas to pursue.

Research in Support of Career Exploration in the Middle Grades

ACTE & Career Cruising, 2018.  Career Exploration in Middle School: Setting Students on the Path to Success.

An evidence-based overview of why career exploration is important in the middle grades as well as some of the strategies that can be used with this age group.  Includes enumerated recommendations for practitioners.

ACTE & Xello, 2020.  Starting Early: Career Development in the Early Grades.

A brief report outlining the value and benefits associated with career exploration & career development in the elementary and middle grades.  Includes case studies and recommendations for getting started.

Grant, Springer, Tuttle, & Reno, 2021.  Small-Group Counseling Intervention to Support Career Exploration of Rural Middle School Students.

A paper proposing a small-group counseling-based intervention to assist students from rural areas in their career exploration and identity development.

Ginevra & Nota, 2017.  ‘Journey in the World of Professions and Work’: A Career Intervention for Children.

An article describing a 10-unit course intended to boost students’ career adaptability.  Compared to non-participants, participating students (10-11 years old) demonstrated significantly more hope, optimism, curiosity, exploration, occupational knowledge, information, planning, and time perspective.

Godbey & Gordon, 2019. Career Exploration at the Middle School Level: Barriers and Opportunities.

An essay describing the importance of career exploration at the middle level, the opportunities for policy and practice, and the barriers to advisement and engagement.  Includes recommendations for school leaders and practitioners.

Mupinga & Caniglia, 2019. What Middle School Students Know About Careers and the Influences Surrounding Their Choices.

An article outlining ways to support middle school students’ career knowledge and their ability to make informed decisions about their future.  Includes resources for teachers in the middle grades.

Glessner, Rockinson-Szapkiw, & Lopez, 2017. “Yes, I Can”: Testing an Intervention to Increase Middle School Students’ College and Career Self-Efficacy.

An article examining the impact of a hybrid (virtual & in-person) intervention in Florida on students’ career and college self-efficacy.  Results suggest that participating students exhibited higher self-efficacy beliefs.

Grigal, Cooney, & Hart, 2019. Promoting College and Career Readiness With Middle School Youth With Disabilities: Lessons Learned From a Curriculum Development Project.

A study of a College & Career Readiness [CCR] program for middle schoolers, with and without disabilities.  Includes online resources arranged by topic as well as considerations for universal design, technology access, and the need for developmentally appropriate content.

Perna, 2019. Why Career Exploration Must Be a K-12 Priority and One Way to Make It Happen.

An opinion piece suggesting that career exploration must be holistically integrated into schooling throughout the curriculum and throughout the K-12 spectrum.  Includes a link to the author’s Career Tree framework.

Center for American Progress, 2020. Creating Strong Building Blocks for Every Student: How Middle Schools Can Lay the Foundation for Rigorous High School Pathways.

A long-form article outlining the challenges and inequities associated with access to CTE and high school pathways.  The authors discuss the added barriers introduced by COVID-19, the promise of Perkins V, and the opportunities for middle school programming.  Includes a nationwide policy landscape analysis and “5 Key Components” of successful middle school pathways.

Hanover Research, 2020. Best Practices in Middle School Career and Technical Education Expansion.

A report outlining best practices in implementing CTE in middle school.  Includes 3 case studies, a framework with target outcomes, equity considerations, and major challenges & barriers (esp. related to rural settings and technology access).

Advance CTE, 2019. Putting Afterschool to Work: Career Exploration in Out-of-School Settings.

An article outlining the promises of after-school career exploration programming.  Includes a case study and policy considerations.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

A webpage from the Bureau of Labor Statistics with resources for career exploration, games, Q&A, and resources for students and teachers in the K-12 arena.

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{{filtertype.name}} ({{filtertype.count}}), career exploration in middle school: helping students dream big, while giving them the tools to succeed.

Students today are both excited and nervous about their life after high school. While still dreaming of what the future may hold, they must also map out a future for themselves that is both in line with their career interests and their educational expectations. That’s why cultivating a student’s understanding of their career aspirations and making certain that their educational goals are aligned with their career objectives are vital to a student’s long-term success. Career exploration is the cornerstone of this process, and research suggests that middle school is the most effective time for career guidance to occur. Evidence shows that career guidance works; it is associated with both positive educational and employment outcomes, keeps students engaged in school, and allows them to develop a better sense of self. As we encourage students to dream about their futures, we must give them the knowledge and tools to succeed and support the interventions that have proved benefits. Middle school career exploration is one of those interventions.

Key Findings

• Having career aspirations linked to an educational goal impacts the likelihood that a student will achieve his or her goals
• Career exploration plays an important role in the process by allowing students to gain knowledge about their interests and skills as well as the career pathways available
• Research finds that middle school is the most effective time for career guidance programs.
• Middle school students are already thinking about their futures and are open to career exploration. They want information that can help them match their specific skills and interests with potential careers
• Career education works; career education is associated with positive educational and employment outcomes

Check out these related articles

Extending the Runway for Middle School Career Exploration 

Here at ASA, students are the center of all that we do. And we firmly believe (and the research confirms it) that it is in students’ best interests to explore career opportunities early in their educational journeys. Beginning the career exploration process in middle school gives young people the time to discover their strengths and […]

What Middle School Students Have to Say About Career Exploration

In a previous blog post, Unpacking States’ Efforts to Prioritize and Facilitate Middle School Career Exploration, we summarized the results of American Student Assistance® (ASA) and Education Strategy Group’s (ESG) national scan of states’ middle school career exploration vision, policies, and infrastructure. The findings were promising, but to better understand the true impact of these […]

Unpacking States’ Efforts to Prioritize and Facilitate Middle School Career Exploration

In a prior blog, we discussed the importance of starting career exploration in middle school for both our students and our society. Now, we’ll delve deeper into how states are currently defining, investing in, and supporting the implementation of middle school career exploration programs.    At American Student Assistance® (ASA), we recently commissioned Education Strategy Group […]

Lesson Plan on Creating a Career Brochure

• Kellie Hayden
• Categories : Middle school teaching strategies
• Tags : Teaching middle school grades 6 8

Making a Three Panel Visual Aid

Students will complete research on a chosen occupation and present the information in a three panel visual aids with this lesson plan on creating a career brochure. When students create a tri-fold that focuses on one profession, they can learn a great deal about that job.

Creating a Paper Tri-fold

Before beginning a career unit, the teacher may need to review or teach students how to make a paper brochure . There are several formats from which to choose. One of easiest formats for students to create is a tri-fold pamphlet.

Begin by having students fold a piece of paper in thirds. That means that each student will need to fill six panels.

It should be colorful, attractive and neat. Depending on the age of the student, the students can use basic word processing software to design and create the entire brochure on a computer. Students can also add clip art and/or photos. On the other hand, younger students can hand write the text, color the art by using markers and colored pencils and/or glue photos to a basic template The teacher needs to decide on the level of sophistication for the career brochure.

Making the Six Panels

The teacher may want to suggest ideas for the six panels. Below are suggested design ideas:

Title panel:

• The name of the occupation, name of student, class name, name of the teacher, and a clip art or photo that fits nicely with the profession.

Other five panel ideas:

• Job description
• Training or degree needed
• Salary range
• Work environment, such as in an office, outside work, in a hospital, telecommuting, etc.
• Advancement opportunities
• Travel (necessary/unnecessary)
• Profession location
• Occupation security

Steps for Delivering the Lesson

The following are steps for the brochure lesson:

Step 1 : Review or teach students how to make a paper tri-fold visual aid. Then, share the requirements. You need to decide what items are mandatory and what items are optional.

Step 2 : Help students to select a profession to research. Students should brainstorm a large amount of careers in class so that they have many from which to choose.

Research an Occupation

• Step 3 : Allow time for students to complete their research. The research can come from personal interviews, the Internet, books, magazines, etc.

For older students, the teacher can require that students include a separate reference page that shows where the information was found. Teachers will need to decide which writing style students will use to cite their sources . Writing styles such as APA or MLA each have different requirements for formatting citations. Older students should be aware that different colleges, depending on subject matter, require different writing styles.

Future Employment Tri-fold

• Step 4 : Make a deadline for the paper tri-fold to be completed. Some students may want to complete the them on a computer at home. Class time can be set aside for making them; however, if students are working on them at home, they will have nothing to do in class.

For younger students, it is best if you can schedule time in the computer lab so that students have access to computers. However, students can create nice brochures without the aid of a computer.

Rubric Criteria

To help students focus their efforts, it is helpful to give them a rubric. Rubrics show students what a quality piece entails. The advanced level is the goal; this is where students should focus their efforts. In addition, rubrics help teachers grade quickly and efficiently.

Criteria for the rubric can be accuracy of content, neatness of text and photos, creative placement of text and, and spelling and grammar. The levels can be Advanced, Excellent, Proficient and Basic.

Example Career Brochure Rubric

• Content is accurate and interesting
• Text is concise and clear
• Photos are neat, creative and colorful
• No spelling and grammar errors
• Content is mostly accurate and interesting
• Text is mostly concise and clear
• Photos are mostly neat, creative and colorful
• A few spelling and grammar errors

Proficient:

• Content is somewhat accurate and interesting
• Text is somewhat concise and clear
• Photos are somewhat neat, creative and colorful
• Some spelling and grammar errors
• Content has problems with accuracy
• Text is not concise or clear
• Photos are not neat, creative or colorful
• Many spelling and grammar errors

The lesson plan on creating a career brochure can help guide your students in creating an eye-catching pamphlet on future careers. In addition, they will have learned about a possible profession for their future.

References/resources:

Career Research, https://research.careers.org/

Career Research Project, https://home.comcast.net/~thohlfeld/career _project/career_project.htm

Photo reference:

Photo by Kellie Hayden

This post is part of the series: Career Lessons

The lessons in this series can help teachers guide students in their career explorations.

• Career Lesson Plans
• Career Brochures Help Students Think about Future Professions
• Put Students’ Pens to Work: Future Employment Ideas and Career Essays

Career Research Project with Worksheets and Sample

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Health Care Careers Exploration for Schools

Ohio State offers a variety of opportunities for area school districts, students and their parents to learn more about a career in health care.

Has your middle-school student ever wondered what respiratory therapists do for a living? Or has a high schooler you know wanted to explore what a career in nursing might look like?

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, has a variety of opportunities available for area K-12 schools and their students to learn more about the health care industry and the variety of  career opportunities  it offers. From classroom presentations to shadowing clinicians and touring laboratories, we want our young community members to be able to explore concrete health care options for their future.

With hands-on experiences, students will be exposed to many different jobs in the health care setting, and we’ll educate them on the paths they’ll need to take to be successful in those fields. At the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, we believe health care can provide a fulfilling career for anyone.

What types of learning experiences are available for young students?

We offer a variety of ways for students of all grade levels to learn more about careers in health care and, specifically, how Ohio State can help them reach their career potential. 

Some of the experiences we offer include:

• Classroom presentations – We’ll send one or more speakers to your classroom to talk about careers in health care with the goal of raising awareness of opportunities that students can consider for their future.
• Shadowing – Students can make a one-time visit to one of our facilities to observe and witness firsthand the environment and duties associated with their field of interest.
• Mentorships/internships – In some cases, we offer a recurring opportunity for a student to observe a field of interest at one of our facilities. Currently, we have mentorships or internships in the following fields: respiratory therapy , clinical laboratory careers , imaging , nursing , patient care associates  and supply chain.
• Field trips – A group of students can attend presentations and participate in immersive tours at one or more of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center facilities.

Some experiences are reserved only for students in schools that have Workforce Partnerships agreements with us.

How can I learn more about health care careers at Ohio State?

When students experience firsthand from an early age how they can make a difference in health care, it can dramatically impact their future decisions and career choices. Plus, bringing more awareness to the benefits of health care careers helps us keep the workforce at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center strong and inclusive.

While we have various individual experiences for students, we also partner with area schools to provide agreed-upon education for these topics. Priority for fulfilling requests for experiences is given to schools with an affiliation Workforce Partnerships agreement and schools in the central Ohio community.

If you have a young person interested in learning more about health care careers, please complete this form  and we’ll be happy to review your experience request. If you’d like more information about a formal agreement for workforce experiences, please contact Elizabeth Lanker at [email protected] . Lanker is director of Workforce Partnerships, and her focus is on cultivating collaborations and steering the expansion of workforce initiatives.

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Tim Walz's military record: What to know about potential VP's National Guard service

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, choosing a progressive yet plain-spoken VP candidate from America’s heartland to help her win over rural, white voters.

“I’m pleased to share that I’ve made my decision: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate,” Harris said via text to supporters. “Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. I know that he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.”

We look at Walz, a 60-year-old U.S. Army National Guard veteran, and his military career over the years.

More: Tim Walz is Kamala Harris' VP pick: Minnesota governor named running mate: Live updates

How long was Walz in the military?

Walz served in the military for 24 years, enlisting in the Nebraska National Guard at 17 in 1981 and then transferring to the Minnesota National Guard in 1996. He retired in 2005 to begin his successful run for the U.S. House, representing Minnesota as command sergeant major, among the highest ranks for enlisted soldiers. His battalion went on to deploy to Iraq shortly after Walz's retirement.

Walz specialized in heavy artillery and had proficiency ribbons in sharpshooting and hand grenades.

But during the 21 years that Walz spent working with large artillery pieces, he suffered hearing loss and tinnitus in both ears, Minnesota Public Radio reported. He was allowed to continue his service after undergoing surgery, which partially resolved his hearing loss.

Where did Walz serve, and what did he do in the National Guard?

During his service, Walz responded to natural disasters, including floods and tornadoes in Minnesota and Nebraska, and was deployed overseas for months at a time, according to MPR.

In 2003, he was sent to Italy, where he served with the European Security Force to support the war in Afghanistan. He was also stationed in Norway for joint training with other NATO militaries.

Walz told MPR that he reenlisted in the National Guard after the September 11 attacks but never saw active combat in his years in the military.

Stars and Stripes reported in 2020 that Walz credited his Army experience with helping him steer Minnesota through the COVID-19 pandemic as governor.

As governor of Minnesota, Walz is commander in chief of the 13,000-soldier Minnesota National Guard. “I’m certainly proud of my military service, but it’s one piece of me,” he told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018. “It doesn’t define me.”

Reuters and USA TODAY reporter Tom Vanden Brook contributed to this story.

How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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19 Facts About Tim Walz, Harris’s Pick for Vice President

Mr. Walz, the governor of Minnesota, worked as a high school social studies teacher and football coach, served in the Army National Guard and chooses Diet Mountain Dew over alcohol.

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By Simon J. Levien and Maggie Astor

• Published Aug. 6, 2024 Updated Aug. 9, 2024

Until recently, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was a virtual unknown outside of the Midwest, even among Democrats. But his stock rose fast in the days after President Biden withdrew from the race, clearing a path for Ms. Harris to replace him and pick Mr. Walz as her No. 2.

Here’s a closer look at the Democrats’ new choice for vice president.

1. He is a (very recent) social media darling . Mr. Walz has enjoyed a groundswell of support online from users commenting on his Midwestern “dad vibes” and appealing ordinariness.

2. He started the whole “weird” thing. It was Mr. Walz who labeled former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, “weird” on cable television just a couple of weeks ago. The description soon became a Democratic talking point.

3. He named a highway after Prince and signed the bill in purple ink. “I think we can lay to rest that this is the coolest bill signing we’ll ever do,” he said as he put his name on legislation declaring a stretch of Highway 5 the “Prince Rogers Nelson Memorial Highway” after the musician who had lived in Minnesota.

4. He reminds you of your high school history teacher for a reason. Mr. Walz taught high school social studies and geography — first in Alliance, Neb., and then in Mankato, Minn. — before entering politics.

5. He taught in China in 1989 and speaks some Mandarin. He went to China for a year after graduating from college and taught English there through a program affiliated with Harvard University.

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