Get Your Students Hired
Bob,
What are some ways you do this with your students? Thanks for you input on this.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
By using there everyday life as part of what they are learning. Structure of the human mind is yet to be opened. One way of effecting learning is going some place in there thoughts were no one has before.
Involving the career history or students and letting them voice their experiences is something that allows that particular student to feel involved as well as gives other students real world feedback from experience. Understanding what the students are looking for out of a career will help make supplemental information and projects a more relevant fit for those students and their goals.
Depending on the class I am teaching, I focus on researching designers who are successful in a particular field. Finding out specifics of that designer's background and education, finding out about their philosophy and business approach brings a practical aspect to what we are doing in class and make the students own progress towards their goals more concrete. They look at real-world examples to see how they measure up and reevaluate their skills and make adjustments to increase their chances of success once they graduate.
In a History class for medical students who will not utilize history on a daily basis I will direct the course material to higher thinking and critical analysis events while keeping the content moving forward. The idea is to recognize the ultimate ends of the program and tailor it to the students. For a business program I would teach history with a heavy emphasis on the impact of world events on business and economic factors. I would keep the names of important business leaders on the forefront of the discussion.
Fordham,
Like your approach as you are offering both relevance and application with your delivery. By having former students come in you are letting them validate the content you are offering because they will tell the current students how this information and the skills will be used when they graduate. Stories from the field enhance the learning process because students as you know enjoy hearing examples of how this application or procedure was used in a certain situation. Comes the content come alive.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Describe requirements, experiences in the field they may be entering, such as what to expect in the Medical Assisting field. Relate stories concerning good and bad experiences of those who have already entered the field. I usually invite students who have graduated and working in a particular field to return and tell thier story.
The student in the adult learning environment need to fill part of the learning. The stratagems of hand on learning helps solidify the learning experience. I try to make a lab for each block of learning.
Berna,
This is what increases the value of the course to the students. They need to see the ROI for the course and when they do they will start to realize they need to invest time and effort to be successful in the course. So the more applications you can make the better.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I think that it important to make instruction relevant so that students may be able to apply the instruction to "daily life". For example, I when I introduce a new topic, I will give examples as to how to apply the information to "real life" settings. I give examples of what can be expected once they enter the field or "real work environment".
James,
This mix is what makes the course come alive for the students. They get to see both application and relevancy to what they are learning and this is what helps them to get ready for career success.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
By the mix of a solid lab experience with the lectures mixed in to balance not only the day but the whole learning process.
Gary,
This is such a valuable strategy for you to use. I am a big fan of guest speakers and field trips for the reasons you list. Guest speakers help students to see the reason why the content being taught is valuable and they reinforce the standards you have for the course. They make everything real for the students. After a guest speaker my students are always ramped up and motivated to work even harder. When ever they start to wear down I bring in another speaker so I can keep them on a high and excited in relation to their career preparation.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I like to bring in guest speakers working in the profession. I have employers in our field come in and explain their expectations and professionals working in the field share their experience. The speakers emphasize the importance of the information I have been teaching. The students understand the relevance when they hear it from someone besides me.
Andrew,
Relevancy and application are two essential elements that students need to see in their courses. Your point is a good one because if they don't they are not going to see value in relation to what is being studied.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
The student doesnt want to learn things that they are not going to use in the career choice. As career educators we nned to make our course content relevant to the industry and up to date with current standards.
John-Howard,
Thank you for these comments in relation to student understanding and professional growth. You are right on with you statements concerning the need for students to see the value of what is being taught and investing the time and effort to acquire the needed knowledge and skills. As you say if they don't realize this while students they will when they are out in the workplace and realize that they are in need of these competencies which they chose not to acquire.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
When teaching IT at the University level, the question of making instruction relevant is as salient as the Belorussian Front in World War II -- in other words, huge.
The problem in a nutshell is this -- there are three fundamental levels of IT:
1) The theoretical level, where the reasons why things work the way they do are explained.
2) The operational level, where the network systems are actually managed.
3) The technical level, where systems are actually handled -- this is the point where there is the most 'hands-on'.
In almost any IT class I teach, students immediately want to go to Level 3 [even when this would be inappropriate for certification preparation, which is mostly about Level 2]. I use the term "button-pushing monkeys" to draw them away from this -- the 'monkeys' are the people who only know to click a particular button to get a desired result. For example, to add a user account to a group, you click this button. But you have to consider a number of factors *before* you click the button -- why are you adding this account to this group, and not any other? What restrictions and permissions are inherent in this group membership? Is multiple-group membership possible or desirable for this account? Should the account be a member of a local administrative group, a global group, or a universal group?
You cannot answer any of these questions without a thorough theoretical knowledge of how groups and accounts interact in Active Directory -- this is a fundamental and major theoretical underpinning for network management.
I further employ the strategy of considering future objectives in establishing relevance. Since personnel are a major cost in networking, IT is always under pressure to reduce head counts ["Do more with less", which when extended to its logical extreme means "Do everything with nothing"1], and one of the major trusts in this field over the last decade is increasing degrees of concentration and automation.
To put it another way -- the professional life of a button-pushing monkey is liable to be "poor, nasty, brutish, and SHORT". If they are pursuing careers which require 4-year college, students need to understand the trends and issues which will affect the future into which they are graduating, even if these do not seem directly relevant at the time of instruction. They certainly will be later.
Walt,
This is an important point. They need to see the connection between what is being studied and how it will impact their career development. This is what I call connecting the dots between the classroom and reality. The more this can be done the better prepared the students will be to transition into employment.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I think it is more important to make subject matter taught in my classes to be relevant to the industry my students aspire to enter. In order for students to buy into my curriculum, they have to see the big picture on how what they are learning will help them in their chosen career fields. One way to show relevance to my students is to take them on field trips and show them first-hand how what they are learning will help them in the future. It is even more powerful when the company host of our tour is a graduate from the school where I teach.