2024 Soft Skills Challenge
Overview
The Indiana County Chamber of Commerce, ARIN IU28, and Indiana Area SD have partnered together to offer the second Soft Skills Challenge between April 15-22, 2024 for high school students in Armstrong and Indiana counties.
This activity takes students to the businesses and gives them a chance to demonstrate mastery of soft skills in a practical setting and is a true partnership between our community businesses and schools.
The Soft Skills Challenge will take place between 8:30 am - 1:30 pm at locations along Philadelphia Street in Indiana, PA on each of the following dates: April 15, 17, 19, 22, and 24.
Schools will be assigned a date and a limit on the number of students they may bring so that we can offer this opportunity to all schools. The schedule, challenges, and details will look similar to 2023; however, we’ve made some changes based on last year’s feedback.
Businesses make staff available for the Soft Skills Challenge and we want to honor their commitment by avoiding last minute schedule changes due to high rates of absenteeism; therefore, we encourage schools to make this an optional event OR a class assignment for juniors or seniors.
More specific information will follow after we have commitments from schools and businesses.
Additional Details
Based on the number of students each school commits to bringing, some dates could be eliminated. Every effort will be made to communicate the final schedule in advance.
- Students will be in teams of 8-10 students. Teams will rotate through 7 different stations throughout the day.
- At each station, students will complete a short challenge related to work ethic, manners, team work, financial literacy, communication, problem solving, and understanding the world of work. Businesses may develop their own challenge for their station; or, ARIN Intermediate Unit 28 can work with you to design an activity.
- As part of demonstrating time management skills, teams will be expected to navigate to their scheduled station unassisted to complete the challenges. Each station will take place at a participating business and will last for 20 minutes. Sign in sheets and scoring rubrics will be provided for each station.
- At least one representative from the business is needed to interact with the students, ask them to sign in, explain the directions of the challenge, and score the team’s performance on the challenge.
- Schools are responsible for sending their own chaperones. Chaperones can position themselves strategically at or between stations. The number of chaperones will depend on the number of students the school is sending.
- Lunch will not be provided for students; however students may purchase lunch from nearby restaurants, and a location in which to store and eat packed lunches will be available.
- Transportation reimbursement for schools will likely be provided through grant funding; but that is not yet confirmed.
Busses can park at a location TBD between drop off and pick up to avoid the traffic and limited parking options for buses in Downtown Indiana.
Indiana Borough Police will be notified of the dates of the event and are aware that students will be participating in challenges.
Drop off will be at 8:30 am at a downtown location TBD. Following a whole group welcome, students will follow a predetermined schedule until pick up at 1:30 pm at the same location.
Click here for a tentative schedule. (Coming Soon)
Sample Challenges
The structure of this event, the design of the challenges, and the scorecard evaluation are all based on PA Career State Standards 13.3.11 A-E Career Retention and Advancement. Students will evaluate personal attitudes and work habits that support career retention and advancement, evaluate team member roles to describe and illustrate active listening techniques, evaluate conflict resolution skills as they relate to the workplace, develop a personal budget, and evaluate time management strategies.
Challenges will take place at local businesses on Philadelphia Street in Downtown Indiana and will be scored by professionals representing a variety of industries. Challenge examples and past business participants include:
What Do Districts Need to Do?
1. Email Stacie Isenberg sisenberg@iu28.org to confirm your school's scheduled date and submit the estimated number of teams your school will send. (Teams should be made up of 8-10 students each.)
2. Coordinate district transportation, permission slips, chaperones, etc. for your assigned date.