1. Instructional Need: Students will need to begin applying to jobs after their degree
is finished. Knowing the career paths available to them and the possible salary,
students can better choose the one career they wish to do.
Objective: Given the research the students have previously done on Communication
careers and the discovered salaries of possible future careers, students will create a
spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel of the careers and salaries and select their chosen
career with 98% accuracy.
Assessment: Excel spreadsheet of careers and salaries, with their chosen career
selected.
Analyze Learners and Context:
This lesson has been designed for a college class called Senior Seminar, a
Communication Studies senior’s capstone class. The majority of the students are
between the typical college senior ages of 21-23 and there are one or two non-
traditional students of an older age. There are about 20 students in the class and
about 75% are male and 25% are female. There are no students with learning
disabilities. As for culture, the majority is Caucasian, however there are two
Hispanic students and one African-American.
Students know how to turn on the computer in the school’s computer lab, log in,
find Microsoft Excel on the Desktop, open Excel, and all students know how to
use a few of the functions. These functions include: data entry and font editing.
A minority of the students have accelerated knowledge of Excel’s functions.
This is the first step in the class’ final project. Most students are anxious to
graduate and are distracted in class. However, the students seem to put effort in
to their projects since this class ensures their graduation status.
The students will be given the video to watch overnight and have until the next
class to create and finish their spreadsheets. They are to be handed in to the
professor at the beginning of class.
Every student has a computer that they own. This has been established at the
beginning of the semester. Students also have the option to use the school’s
computer lab. Each student has been given a school given Microsoft Office
program if they did not own it previously. They know how to use the program on
their own machines. QuickTime has also been downloaded on every computer.
Before the video has been given to the students they have had a previous lesson
where they researched future career options. In that research they were told to
find the average salary of each career. This is the ‘given research’ in the
objective.

2. 3. Make headers for columns.
2. Look at research from last • First column, type in Careers
1. Launch Microsoft Excel • Second column, type in Salary
project.
6. Insert a header with the title of
the spreadsheet, their name, and
5. Look back to research and type date
4. Type names of careers in corresponding salaries with • Click on header part of excel
underneath Career header. their careers in the Salary • type name
column. • create and type title of sheet
• type date
• (All in correct spaces as show in video)
7. Save Project.
• File
• Save as... 8. Send to professor
• Type in their last name, 9. Print out hard copy.
(assumed they know how)
underscore, 'final project'
• Save.
Script:
(VIDEO OF ME AND SOME MOVING CLIP ART?)
Hey guys! So, you have already researched possible careers for your future and the
salaries you could earn in those positions. You are now going to take that information and
insert it into an excel spreadsheet so you can compare salaries to use later for your final
paper.
Show on screen : HOW TO:
(BEGIN DEMONSTRATION ON SCREEN)
Open Excel. Once that has loaded and opened you will begin to insert your data. First you
will make the headers for your columns. The first column will be titled Career and the
second will be titled Salary.
(SHOW TYPING TITLES IN COLUMNS at same time you are speaking)
Next, you will put each career in the rows under the Career column. Like so…
(type ‘1st career’ in row 1, ‘2nd career’ in row 2, etc. at same time you are speaking).
Then, you will look to your research and insert the correct salary next to the career.
(SHOW INSERTION OF SALARY)
Continue this for every career.
When you are done with that, insert a header at the top of your Spreadsheet like so
(SHOW CLICKING ON HEADER)

3. and type a title of the project, your name, and next class meeting’s date. Now save it as
(SHOW IT)
lastname_finalspreadsheet and send it to me via email and print out a hard copy to bring
to class.
(FADE and show me again…)
Remember, we will be using this so you can easily compare salaries for a section of your
final paper. See you next class!