Cooperative Education, Work Experience, Job Shadowing, OYAP
Traditionally, cooperative education teachers have had more hands-on involvement with informing students about safety on the job than other teachers, because of their curriculum expectations requiring classroom safety instruction and their role in placing co-op students in workplaces. With new Ministry of Education initiatives such as Specialist High Skills Major and Student Success, other subject specialist teachers may become more involved with experiential learning. These Ministry of Education initiatives stress the importance of experiential learning opportunities for all students and particularly those who may benefit from learning experiences outside the traditional classroom environment.
With so many students going out to workplaces for job-shadowing and work experiences as well as co-op placements, the importance of assessing workplaces for safety and preparing students to work safely, as required by the Ministry of Education policy, is greater than ever. Fortunately there are a number of resources available, some designed specifically for co-op teachers or teachers involved in experiential learning. These resources will assist teachers in preparing classroom safety lessons and in effective assessment of placements to help ensure they're safe for students.
Resources for co-op teachers
There are a number of resources available for use by teachers in co-operative education and the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program. All are free for use by Ontario teachers.
Curriculum-based resource
Resources from the Ministry of Labour
- Young and New Workers…Are Yours Ready? was created by the Ontario Ministry of Labour to give employers of young and new workers information about their responsibilities under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. It provides tips for employers on making the working experience a safe one for young workers and outlines five things inspectors will be looking for when they visit workplaces. Links to resources are provided for employers to help them prepare to supervise young and new workers.
- Heads up for Inspectors: Students at Work [PDF 51 kb] was developed to provide Ministry of Labour inspectors with an understanding of how workplace placements for students work. The document is prepared in two columns. The main column was created to let inspectors know about cooperative education and OYAP programs and the left hand column, which is of interest to both teachers and inspectors, talks about enforcement and when coop students would be considered to be workers.
Additional selected resources
- Employing Young Workers tip sheets – the supervisor tip sheet is a perfect hand-out for placement employers while the young worker version reinforces basic safety information for students.
- WorkSmartOntario – the web site has must-know information for new workers and the test for teachers to administer makes it a great learning tool.
- Health and Safety 101 is an interactive online health and safety course for young people developed by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. Based on the information in the WSIB's YWAP materials, this course can be used as preparation for taking the Passport to Safety online health and safety challenge. It's suitable for distance education or when a guest speaker is not available. Check out our HS101 quiz (instructions for the teacher [PDF 142 kb] and handout for the students [PDF 94 kb]) , which is part of the new resource for elementary school teachers. It's best suited for students in Grades 7 through 10. The quiz turns the on-line course into a learning activity that lets you know that students have reviewed all of the on-line materials.
- Passport to Safety is a national online health and safety challenge designed to provide people with the basic knowledge of health and safety they need to be ready for job-specific training in the workplace. For students who respond best to simple concepts and visual lessons there is now a Passport to Safety 101 quiz. Ontario teachers can order Passport tests FREE for their students. Visit the teacher zone of Passport's website for more information about both quizzes and to download an order form.
Videos
- iDrive is an excellent video to show if your co-op students will be driving during their assignments or need to drive just to get there. Produced and made available by the Ministry of Transportation, the video delivers messages specifically targeted at youth. At this time the video is no longer available as a new version is in production. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months. If you want to use iDrive in the interim, ask your colleagues if they have a copy of the original video. A number of copies were distributed to teachers when it was introduced.
- Lost Youth, a video available from the Workers Compensation Board of BC, tells the stories of four young people who sustained serious, life-altering injuries at work. The language is graphic and some of the sequences are disturbing, but many teachers find it hits home in the classroom. A sanitized version is also available. The two versions of the video are now available for download in formats for Windows and Macintosh computers and for the iPod.
- Passport to Safety has produced three short videos that might be appropriate to show your students if you are having them take the Passport to Safety quiz. In the videos Candace Carnahan talks about the serious injury she experienced at her summer job. The videos are available for download from the Passport to Safety website's teacher zone.
- The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board provides the winning videos from their student video contest. Visit their site to download the student videos for classroom use.
Guest speakers for your class or school
- Young
Worker Awareness Program (YWAP)
Visit the YWAP website at www.ywap.ca to learn more about the program and book a presentation for your school. - Threads of Life, the workplace tragedy family support association, has a speakers bureau of volunteers who have been affected by a life-altering workplace injury or fatality, or are living with an occupational disease. Contact Threads of Life for more information or to book a presentation.
Presentations for teachers
- Tish Amico, the Education Consultant with the Ministry of Labour, makes presentations on a regular basis to teachers and administrators about health and safety curriculum requirements in all course areas – including business, science, technology and cooperative education – and highlights the free curriculum-based safety resources available to teachers. Please contact her at tishamico@sympatico.ca for more information.
Additional resources by industry
For those situations where you might need learning resources that go into considerable detail about particular industries where students might be placed, for instance construction or health care, there are resources available from associations free of charge or at minimal cost.
For example, some construction technology teachers use the video called “New on the Job” available from the Construction Safety Association of Ontario to help prepare students to go out to a construction site placement. Similar resources are available from other Safe Workplace Associations.