June 3, 2024
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Most school districts have identified the characteristics they will instill in students before graduation. The result is a Graduate Profile or Portrait of a Graduate.
While academic preparation is always one focus area, most profiles also identify the soft skills the district hopes to see in its graduates. Here’s an example from Community Consolidated School District 15 in Illinois, and another one from Putnam County School District in Florida.
But despite these concentrated efforts, the gap between academic skills and life skills is where school districts are currently falling short.
Ninety-seven percent of employers say soft skills are essential and yet, 51% of employers do not believe the education system is closing the soft skills gap. Stanford Research Center, Harvard University, and the Carnegie Foundation found that 85% of job success comes from excellent soft skills, while only 15% is due to academic and technical skills.
That’s why your district needs to find a strategic and sustained way to support soft skill development. These efforts will pay off in helping you realize your Profile of a Graduate vision and ensure your students are ready for their futures.
Let’s discuss how you can use JAKAPA to help your students develop essential life skills.
Examine your Profile of a Graduate statements alongside JAKAKA’s skills and definitions. Then, create a table that shows which underlying skills are necessary for your graduates to achieve your vision.
| Sample Profile of a Graduate statements | JAKAPA skills alignment |
| Understand that hard work is directly related to personal and professional accomplishment | Goal Regulation, Responsibility Management, Detail Management, Decision-Making, Self-Reflection, Teamwork, Stress Regulation, Confidence Regulation, Independence, Adaptability |
| Manage behavior, work well with others and have hope | Energy Regulation, Impulse Regulation, Optimism, Teamwork, Capacity for Trust, Ethical Capacity, Social Warmth, Anger Management, Adaptability |
| Self-advocate and communicate effectively | Expressive Communication, Persuasive Communication, Leadership, Confidence Regulation, Independence, Adaptability |
| Active community members who treat others compassionately | Cultural Competence, Perspective Taking, Self-Reflection, Social Warmth, Capacity for Trust, Ethical Capacity, Teamwork, Anger Management |
| Forward thinkers who are interested in their world and work to make it better | Leadership, Abstract Thinking, Perspective Taking, Independence, Adaptability |
| Future planners who are motivated and confident to set goals, work hard, take risks and persist through challenges | Goal Regulation; Task, Detail, Time and Responsibility Management; Anger Management; Teamwork; Stress Regulation; Optimism; Independence; Adaptability |
| Academically prepared to think critically and creatively, to communicate effectively, to work well with others and to manage their finances |
Abstract Thinking, Creativity, Information Processing, Expressive and Persuasive Communication, Leadership, Detail Management |
Within JAKAPA’s platform, create assessments with the skills you identified. Administer assessments several times every academic year to identify patterns and growth. Once you choose the assessment dates, they automatically show up in your students’ accounts. Students simply click the link to take the assessment.
You can also assign peer assessments based on student teams, clubs, classes, or activities. This peer feedback is valuable for students because it helps them better understand how others observe their skills in various contexts. It also helps students build a soft skills resume they can use with potential employers, scholarship applications, and colleges.
Schools have flexible choices for how to engage students with the JAKAPA program.
Some use an advisory period, in which students use JAKAPA daily. Others integrate JAKAPA into existing courses, such as CTE courses, English courses, or other general education classes. Teachers also have the option to integrate JAKAPA data with their gradebooks, so weekly points are automatically assigned for JAKAPA engagement.
Each school district gets to decicde how to incentivize and reward students for participating in the program.
JAKAPA analytics show strengths, areas for growth, comparative data, and growth data for your school. The program also provides engagement metrics. Your school district can disaggregate groups by program, class, or other parameters to better understand how skills are developing.
To make the data meaningful, compare engagement with growth data to gauge the impact it is having on your students’ skill development. Many schools have made JAKAPA a line item on administrative and teacher team agendas. However it works best at your district, you can analyze JAKAPA data reguarly to identify patterns and gain insights.
Once you have measureable results, publish growth data on your annual report or on your website to show your community how you are working toward your Profile of a Graduate.
Use JAKAPA data in business advisory meetings to underscore your focus on developing the critical life skills students need for success after graduation. Publicize your participation in the JAKAPA program with parents and help them understand how to support their children’s skill development at home.
JAKAPA engagement takes 10-15 minutes per day. In a calendar year, students earn enough seat time to earn ¼ credit. Ask your board of education to approve JAKAPA as a class and award up to a full elective credit for soft skills during high school.
Students will benefit from having soft skills on their transcripts as they compete for opportunities post-graduation. It will also show your community that you are serious about getting them ready with the skills they need to succeed.
The constraints of traditional education systems do not leave much room for educators to effectively teach soft skills. That’s why JAKAPA’s program is both comprehensive and easy to integrate into existing schedules. It’s designed to specifically measure, train, and develop soft skills in students, ensuring that they are well-prepared for life post-graduation.
Another challenge that educators face is that current standardized tests do not evaluate life skills. Students are therefore not receiving timely feedback on their soft skills developmente, which hinders their progress. JAKAPA offers real-time feedback and actionable insights through its platform, enabling students to improve their skills continually.
But what about students that find traditional learning methods boring and unengaging? JAKAPA answers this challenge, too, by using a gamified approach to make learning soft skills fun and engaging, which encourages even reluctant learners to engage.
Finally, most school districts have found that addressing the essential life skills that they want their graduates to embody is challenging without a structured, systematic approach. JAKAPA allows students, educators, administrators, and parents to work together to measure, track and monitor proress in real-time. This provides a clear picture of skill development and empowers students to take control of their own trajectory.
In short, JAKAPA is a structured and strategic system that will support your Profile of a Graduate vision.
Explore more of what we have to offer at jakapa.com, and schedule a demo today!
At JAKAPA, we are passionate about developing soft skills and are excited to share more with you!
Explore the possibilities of implementing JAKAPA in your district by clicking here.
If you’re eager to understand the inner workings of JAKAPA, click here.
Prefer a hands-on approach? Engage with our clickable prototype by clicking here.
Is JAKAPA the perfect fit for your district? Take the plunge and schedule a short demo with our team by clicking here.
We can’t wait to connect with you!
JAKAPA is thrilled to announce its recognition as a winner in the 2025 Top EdTech Product Awards, hosted by District Administration in collaboration with the highly acclaimed Future
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