13 • Institute for Work & Health (IWH)
Identifying critical essential skills may require consultations with representatives of employers
and workers, as well as with program instructors.
Review the existing curriculum and identify sections where the critical essential skills
(identified in the previous step) are most salient and where ES supports—new curriculum
designed to facilitate learning by those with gaps in essential skills—could be embedded.
Identify constraints on curriculum duration (i.e. regulatory requirements, client interest in
streamlined training that focuses on practical application).
Observe delivery of the existing program and interview instructional staff on perceived
essential skills needs for their trainees. Ask instructors about existing resources, ideas,
relevant workplace documents or other supports that may have already been developed to
address ES gaps.
Develop the content, drawing on external expertise in ES curriculum development if
necessary. Include the following steps in the development of the content:
• contextualize the essential skills content to the tasks required by the job, and provide
scenarios in which the key essential skills would be applied,
• build gradual steps to convey key concepts; i.e. "scaffold" answers to problems by
providing all steps leading to the final answer,
• provide key words, tips, sample solutions and templates for exercises, and
• build in hands-on demonstrations, applications or other work-related tasks to help
trainees practice the skills they learn in theory.
Develop the essential skills
curriculum to be embedded within the
existing OHS training program
5
Quick Tip
For this project, we obtained assistance from SkillPlan (https://www.skillplan.ca/) because
of its expertise on occupation-specific essential skills requirements.
