Advisement

  • Here, you can find links for discovering more about yourself, being more successful in the classroom, exploring colleges, majors, and careers, and planning, applying, choosing, and paying for college or technical college.

     

    MATS- Mentoring, Advising, & Teaching

    The MATS Advisement Task Force was created to be more intentional with how we offer academic, career, and social/emotional advisement to our students. This was developed out of the Strategic Plan for the PCSD from the spring of 2018. The team is in the process of creating advisement lessons for 6th-12th grade that will be implemented in all PCSD middle and high schools.  

    For the school year, the MATS Advisement Team has created and implimented 8 mandatory lessons that will be taught in all 8th, 10th, and 12th grade classrooms.  These lessons will utilize Canvas so that students and parents will have access to the lessons online as well.  The remaining grade level lessons will be developed in the the coming school years.  These lessons will enable our students to have system-wide guidance on important academic, career, and personal/social topics. 

     

    Additional Advisement Information: 

    Who am I?

    Learn strategies to prepare for the journey. After high school you are not only entering a college/technical college or starting your career in the military, completing an apprenticeship, etc.–it’s important to stay and be successful in high school!

    Where am I going?

    If you don’t know your destination, how do you know when you get there? Research has shown that exploring a variety of options results in a stronger commitment to the final decision. Therefore, use the links below to explore a multitude of careers and post secondary institutions. Look at different avenues for reaching your goal. Many roads lead to a desired college and career choice. Explore them all: 4-year, 2-year, and technical colleges as well as military, apprenticeships, and other types of post secondary training.

    College Admissions

     

    How will I get there?

    Once you set a goal, the next step is taking action, deciding how to reach your goal and implementing the plan you have made. A journey requires a map, a timeline, and resources (show me the money!) to arrive at your destination. Utilize the Financial Aid 101 & Scholarships as well as ACT/SAT Testing sections of the district counseling website to learn how to get the money you need (i.e., financial aid), what steps to take along the way, and which admissions tests are right for you.

    Senior Capstone Project

    The Senior Capstone Project is designed to answer: Who am I and Where am I going? It is the culminating activity of a student’s high school career. The Capstone Project provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and showcase the skills they have acquired over their past school years. The Capstone Project combines academic, career, and personal goals and components intended to challenge each student’s ability, stretch their limitations, and celebrate their individuality At Paulding School District High Schools the implementation of the Senior Capstone Project may be slightly different. However, all of the Georgia Department of Education Senior Capstone Project Guidance components are followed. The GaDOE Capstone Guidance document can be found online. Click on the local high school website for each high school’s information.

    Goals of Project

    • To provide students with the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in their courses to research relating to a career interest area
    • To allow students to extend their academic experience into areas of personal career interests, to include working with new ideas, organizations, and individuals
    • To encourage students to think critically and creatively about academic, professional, and/or social issues and to further develop their analytical and ethical leadership skills
    • To provide students with the opportunity to refine research skills and demonstrate their proficiency in written and/or oral communication skills

    Four Components of the Capstone Project

    (Minimum requirements set by GaDOE are below with each high school having the flexibility to design and implement this project.)

    1. Research Paper

    The first component is a research paper documenting information on a subject of the student’s choice — a subject demonstrating the student’s career interest, but not necessarily one for which they are an expert. The research must be a worthwhile stretch beyond what is already known. The project proposal would be approved prior to beginning this research. The length of the paper is determined by the local schools, with the understanding that certain information must be evident in the paper. This information includes, but is not limited to, reasons for selecting the occupation in the specific career cluster/pathway, career goals, relevant career-related information that provides the reader some information about a specific occupation or current topics related to that occupation, research on job outlook and education and training needed, and any current trends or changes in the future of the career field. Additionally, to enhance the research and expand learning, students may required to explore an aspect of the career in depth that may be a “hot topic” in the field, i.e. latest research on a particular medicine used in treating certain diseases, genetic research or food safety in the area of Agriculture, or natural gas pipeline safety in the area of energy. By adding this requirement, the student will be able to not only research the career area, but gain specific information that would help them in their preparation for entering the chosen career field.

    2. Portfolio

    The second component of the project should be a portfolio. This portfolio may be in a notebook form or kept electronically. The portfolio provides physical documentation of the career-related capstone project journey.

    3. Mentor

    Students must obtain a mentor to assist in learning more about the career area. The mentor must be someone who is knowledgeable in the chosen area of interest or someone working in the field. The students have the responsibility to obtain a mentor and then submit a signed agreement between the school, the mentor, the student, and the parent. School personnel should assist with finding mentors, if necessary. If a mentor is not available in a nearby area and it would truly be a hardship on the student, virtual mentoring should be a consideration. An example would be Skype, email, Facebook, or any other information related to the career field without face-to-face contact. Possible resources would be CTAE teachers in the Georgia Virtual School program or the local Chamber of Commerce. Students should maintain a log of hours spent with the mentor and are required to spend a minimum of eight (8) hours with their mentor to complete the project. High schools may require more than the eight hour minimum.

    4. Student Presentation

    The fourth and final component of the project will be a presentation. This presentation could be a formal presentation before a panel of community judges where the students present their research information and findings or a presentation before a group of interested students at another grade level such as middle school or elementary school students. Classroom presentations are also acceptable. A student may share any tangible evidence/application of the skills and knowledge acquired from the project. The ideal panel would consist of community members arranged by the school to be held in the evening to accommodate work schedules for those outside of the school. Presentations would consist of the student’s purpose and reasons for choosing the career area, new information gained about the career, and plans for pursuing additional information about the education and training needed for entering the chosen career area.

School Safety