MOST Course Descriptions and Course Objectives

MOST YEAR 1

FALL

MOST 1: Finance and Budgeting 1

Course Description: This full (Fall and Spring) year course was designed to create an awareness of the importance of money in the adult world. During the Fall Semester, students are challenged to identify and differentiate between personal “wants” and “needs”, track and analyze current spending practices, and craft personal, SMART goals to improve personal budgets. This semester ends with an assessment in which the class is charged with the task of planning and effectively budgeting a holiday celebration.

Course Objectives: Focusing on the important differences between wants and needs, students will successfully develop a working budget and accurately track expenses.

MOST 2: Literacy 1: Identifying Main Ideas and Author’s Purpose

Course Description: This full (Fall and Spring) year course was designed to investigate sources of information to answer the question; “How do we know what we know is true?” Students will examine several forms of informational media and apply a variety of strategies to analyze and identify the meaning of words in context, the main idea of the selection, as well as cause and effect relationships within the text.

Course Objectives: Utilizing strategies presented and practiced in class, students will successfully identify author’s purpose: to persuade, to inform, or to entertain.

WINTER

MOST 3: Health & Wellness 1: Executive Functioning

Course Description and Objectives: Students will learn introductory concepts of four components, pairing both the academic exploration of each topic with the application of the practice.

Yoga- Beginner level introduction to different poses and breathing techniques

Training- Beginner level introduction to low level cardio and stretching

Executive Function- Introduction to core executive functions. Curriculum specific to each function and strategies individualized to each student's deficit.

Mindfulness- Introduction to mindfulness and application within the classroom setting.

SPRING

MOST 4:  Finance and Budgeting 2 

Course Description: This course continues to expand students’ awareness of the importance of money. Beyond budgeting, students explore other sources of income: managing funds via banking services, paid employment, and investments. Guest speakers from the fields of banking and financial planning provide insights throughout the semester. Students continue to craft and monitor SMART goals relating to income management. This course ends with an assessment that requires students to identify concepts and put into practice skills learned throughout the semester.

Course Objectives: Following class discussions and in-class activities, students will identify employment as a viable source of income while demonstrating improved banking skills.

MOST 5 Literacy 2: Vetting Sources

Course Description: Expanding on the strategies introduced in the Literacy 1 course, students will be introduced to and will practice the following skills: sourcing, perspective, audience, corroboration, reliability, and credibility to explore how media literacy shapes our culture and society.  Students will be provided with opportunities to analyze author’s purpose and point of view to determine the reliability and credibility of the information. Through selected readings and in-class activities, students will have opportunities to practice corroborating sources to recognize bias and/or misinformation.

Course Objectives: Students will successfully analyze selections, identify the reliability and credibility of the selection, state their opinions on the selection and provide reasonable support their opinions.

MOST YEAR 2

FALL

MOST 6: Careers and Employment

Course Description:  This full (Fall and Spring semesters) year course was designed to explore the skill sets and develop the documentation required for entry into the world of meaningful employment. Students are encouraged to generalize information gathered about themselves in their Growth Mindset literacy course to explore potential employment arenas, and to identify and incorporate relevant information into individual 30-second commercials, resumes, portfolios, and interviews.  In addition, based on students’ identified interests and passions, they will be placed in on-campus internships where students’ performance and progress will be monitored and documented for inclusion into their professional portfolios.

Course Objectives: Through interactive participation in coursework and internships, students will successfully identify and share their individual interests, passions, strengths, and challenges.

MOST 7: Literacy 3: Growth Mindset

Course Description: A growth mindset literacy course designed to build on the idea that making mistakes is a natural part of learning.

Course Objectives: Students will explore the social emotional understandings, skills and strategies necessary to succeed in the world of work using a growth mindset. While incorporating next generation ELA skills, students will develop strategies to make interpretations, judgements, and answer “why” questions that require the recognition of cause/effect relationships. In the process of improving their growth mindset, our class will be fostering control of self-belief (hope) about the future, including job acquisition and maintenance of job tasks.

WINTER

MOST 8: Health & Wellness 2: Executive Functioning

Course Description and Objectives: Students will learn intermediate concepts of executive functioning and mindfulness with the goal to generalize these skills into the school and workplace environments.

Executive Function- Students will apply executive functions to social filters and situations, including role play, modeling, and comprehension. Feedback given will allow students to generalize skills across settings.

Mindfulness- Intermediate class on mindfulness and application within the workplace setting with a focus on awareness of emotions and behavioral aspects of including setting events and altering antecedents and consequent variables based on emotional regulation.

SPRING

MOST 9: Careers and Employment II: Exploring the “Work World”

Course Description: The course will focus on careers and employment through the lens of the "work world". Students will continue to explore their interests, their passions and their strengths but will also identify their challenges to create realistic goals for future employment and to identify possible requisite supports for success. This course includes finalizing a professional resume, a 30-second commercial and practicing interview skills. Students will work directly with professionals from the field to accomplish this.

Course Objectives: By the end of this course, all students will have completed an electronic portfolio inclusive of a current resume, a 30-second commercial and artifacts representing their on-campus internships and other activities on the campus of Molloy University.

MOST 10: Personal Strengths

Course Description: The course will be focused on the smart strengths approach to teach students how to spot, manage, allocate, relate, and train others using their character strengths to enable a more fulfilling and rewarding life. Students will use literature as a vehicle to discover their affinities, what life is calling them to do and the character strengths that make each of them unique.

Course Objectives: By the end of this course, all students will understand their own passions, strengths, supports, and personal beliefs.