The first thing I needed to do was identify the skills that I believe are important for success in all aspects of life. Luckily for me our district did some research by surveying local businesses, universities, and people in the work place and had already identified a number of the skills needed. Secondly, I need to ask the students where they see themselves in 10-15 years. Hopefully they say things like being a doctor, or owning my own business, being an engineer, and so on. After I get their responses, I will send a survey out to those professions asking them to rank the importance of each skill identified in step one. After the survey's are completed I will share the results with students and talk with them about though my class may be titled Ancient World History it is really an opportunity for them to practice the skills that they will need for the rest of their life. For example, if you are handed a primary source about the Julius Caesar the real long term benefit of interacting with that primary source is to practice reading something that is difficult to understand as you will likely encounter that problem later in life while you may never be asked to remember the specific content about Julius Caesar.
Click here for the link to the survey mentioned in the post, please feel free to share it with anyone who might be interested in completing the survey.