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March Madness For Counselors: Career and Coping Skills

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Do you love March Madness? Check out these fun ways to incorporate March Madness into your school counseling program. This blog has been updated from it’s original post in 2021.

All intellectual property rights to the content and materials distributed in connection to this activity by Pawsitive School Counselor. You may not use or reproduce or allow anyone else to use or reproduce any of the content without written permission.

•What does this mean? If you want to post online or to social media using materials used from this packet, please tag me and give me credit: @pawsitiveschoolcounselor . If you want to present about doing career/calming/coping/mindfulness brackets please also give me credit when using this idea and my contents.

Career Madness

No one expects a young child to choose a career at an early age. Learning about occupation options helps inspire them. This knowledge encourages them to go after their dreams as they grow.

How It Works:

First, teach about careers.

There are several ways to do this:

  • Use the fun facts sheets in my activity pack. Share more about each of the top careers on the morning news.

  • Post links to videos or websites about the careers on your webpage, Canvas page, Google classroom, etc.

  • Link directly into your bracket. When I send out my virtual bracket, I attach it either in PDF or Google Sheets. I link each job title to a resource about that career. (either in PDF or in Google Sheets) I link each job title with a resource about that career.

  • Collaborate with your teachers and/or librarian to do some career research

  • Host a career day and have a speaker with that job speak to students BEFORE doing your bracket.

Tips of student debates:

I LOVE this idea from Cheryl Fleming (@FlemingWNES5)!

Having students debate their favorite careers is such an incredible way to practice SO MANY SEL skills. Plus, it encourages cooperative learning.

(I didn’t create a specific lesson plan for this idea—this is just a creative way one amazing counselor used the set!)

But if I were to turn it into a lesson, here’s what I would do:

  • First, share the career options with students and have them pick their favorite.

  • You can use any of the included Google Forms to collect their choices, or simply have them write it down and share it with you.
  • Collaborate with your school librarian to have students research the career they picked (if you want). You could also have them spend some time on any career websites.

  • Have students individually or in groups write down their top reasons their career should win. They can also create a poster or presentation about their career and why it’s important.

  • Have students vote! They would do a classic eyes closed hand raise or use the included Google Forms.

Here are some of my favorite resources for careers:

Videos from Radical Jr.

Next, share the bracket.

You can try this in your own classroom!


Have students vote each week and keep a tally to see which career advances. If you see your students regularly (weekly or bi-weekly), this could be a fun way to start or end each class.

I let my teachers choose what worked best for their class. They could complete the voting as a whole group or allow students to vote individually. If students voted individually, teachers either gave each student a copy of the bracket or sent them the Google Form survey.

I also gave teachers the option to complete the bracket on paper or use a digital method, like a Google Form. After each round, they turned in their class brackets to me, and those votes decided which careers or coping skills advanced.

I found that most of my teachers preferred paper since their email inboxes are so overwhelming.

Here are some sample emails I sent them:

Important notes:

In the past, I have either picked our starting careers. Alternatively, I have had my students vote on their Top 16. Then, I paired them to create the bracket.

You can pair the careers any way you like. I like to partner careers in the same cluster or with similarities- skills, attributes, education level, etc.

For example, travel agents and bankers both work with people, and social skills are important. I also paired a YouTuber with a pro athlete because they are so popular among my students. You can also do this beforehand. You pick the Top 16 and then skip straight to voting for the Elite 8.

Tips on using Google:

These activities are designed to be different each year, with lots of pairing options that can change annually. Since I don’t know which careers you matched up, the Google Forms in my Career packet are set up as simple surveys—a list of careers for students to choose from.

Here are a few ways you can use Google Forms for voting:

  1. Add more questions, with each question asking students to choose between a pair. I’d suggest this approach! For example:
  2. When voting on the Elite 8, you’d have 8 questions, each featuring a different pair.
  3. For the Final 4, the next survey would have 4 questions, with each question showing one of the winning pairs from the Elite 8.
  4. Then for the Top 2, you’d send out a survey with 2 questions featuring the Final 4 matchups.
Click on add question and type in the jobs from the pair you created or the pair that won the previous round.

Find your pairs on the long list and whichever has more votes wins.

In this big list the careers aren’t paired. You’d have to compare the pairs on the results.
So if on the bracket the pair in the Elite 8 is between podcaster vs. news reporter, I’d find each one the results. The contestant with the highest votes makes it to the next round. In this case podcaster would make it to the Final 4.

Tips on using paper brackets:

These work best for individual classes and individual students.

If a teacher is using a paper bracket for a school-wide vote, I would let them know which career or skill has advanced after each round so they can update their bracket and vote accordingly.

Or, I encourage them to complete the entire bracket at once, and any classes that correctly guess the overall winner will receive a prize.

Now, share the results.

I like sharing winners on a bulletin board. This helps everyone know which careers are winning and gets everyone excited for the next round. You can also share the winners of each round on the morning news.

What if I am not doing this school wide?

That’s fine! If you are a classroom teacher consider having students research and debate each career. See above for those tips. Then just follow all the steps above and share out in your class meeting. Then have a big reveal to announce the winner.

Coping Skill Madness

This works just the same as the above.

1st: Teach the coping skills.

  • Teach each skill on the news
  • Send out videos or PAWS mini lessons to your teachers
  • Practice or teach in class
  • Teach throughout the year and then do a quick review before starting your bracket
  • Practice each skill as a station: You can also set up each skill as a station during a class and then let students practice before creating their own individual bracket to take home. Never done centers in class? Counselor Keri has some great ideas.

2nd: Share your bracket

Just like the career March Madness, you could do this virtually or on paper.

I prefer to use the coping skills bracket in a whole class setting, where each student gets to select their own winning coping skill. You can do this in one classroom lesson or stretch it out over several.

3rd: Share out the results

Again you choose the way you want to share about the winner.

Flipped idea:

If I have been teaching about the skills all year, I like to have students start class by completing the bracket. Then I have stations/centers set up and they get to spend the rest of class in the center that was their winner. For ex. if “journaling” was their winner, then there is a center with paper and pencils for them to journal.

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