CAREER PREPAREDNESS THROUGH BLENDED LEARNING

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1 CAREER PREPAREDNESS THROUGH BLENDED LEARNING The Exploring Your Potential (EYP) program can be readily adopted with blended learning. Blended learning is an academic methodology that combines online learning with face-to-face learning. A blended learning approach can be highly beneficial because it includes multiple forms of communications and learning activities. The blended learning approach for EYP includes the online courses provided to the students, generally one per academic year, with at least one in-class seminar each year. The online courses and seminars can be offered in either academic semester or quarter. Broadly, the blended learning approach is: Year 1 EYP Course #1 Year 2 EYP Course #2 Year 3 EYP Course #3 Year 4 EYP Course #4 EYP Course #1 Seminar EYP Course #2 Seminar EYP Course #3 Seminar EYP Course #4 Seminar Language Considerations EYP is offered only in English. The seminars, however, can be conducted in the native language of the country or academic institution. If English is a second language for the students, EYP can also serve as an applied course in practical English. Online Courses Each EYP online course includes approximately hours for the students to complete the various activities and conduct additional career-based research. The courses are divided into six learning modules. Each learning module is organized into 4-6 sections with a total of 8-10 activities that result in 2-5 written assignments posted to the course s My Portfolio. Each course includes one or more signature assignments that can be submitted for Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading. Each course also has a pre-course survey and a postcourse survey used for summative course-level evaluation. 1

2 The Course Seminar Towards the end of the academic term when the students have completed or are just about to complete the assigned course, the institution conducts a seminar with the students. The length of the seminar varies. An instructor-led seminar could be 1-2 hours, whereas an institution-led seminar could be a day-long event that includes guest speakers from the local community and/or student presentations on their career preparedness actions. Suggested activities for the seminar are: Student presentations on the results from their EYP course experiences. Guest speaker(s) from the employment community who address employee skills and career preparedness. Forming small (2-4 person) student groups for a team-based project or activity presentation. A webinar with a career development expert. A training program on a specific career-based soft-skill such as leadership, communications, teamwork, workplace diversity, global awareness, etc. A case study on career readiness based on the use of the B-School Connection service that is included for the students with each EYP course. An entrepreneurial, team-based competition to develop and launch a new product or service idea. Conduct simulated employment interviews and resume writing workshops. Invite employers and host a job-fair. Conduct training sessions on how to build your own business entrepreneurialism. Conduct team-based competitions on developing a business idea. A panel discussion on how to get an entrepreneurial idea funded and launched. 2

3 Multiple Course Seminars Given the diversity of options available for the EYP seminars, the academic institution may want to conduct 2-4 seminars per course during the academic term rather than just one seminar towards the end of the course or term. The option also exists to conduct weekly or bimonthly seminars with the students completing the online EYP courses. Different groups of students could also be combined to leverage the diversity of perspectives and academic disciplines. ONLINE CAREER PREPAREDNESS PROGRAM (OCPP) OPTION In addition to EYP, Peregrine Academic Services offers online leadership development courses that are designed to teach specific soft-skills required by most employers. Peregrine s Online Career Preparedness Program (OCPP) represents a comprehensive academic solution that compliments the institution s knowledge-based (technical) education to develop a more careerprepared graduate. The OCPP leverages the lessons from EYP with the skill development needed to realize the student s potential. The OCPP includes 12 courses delivered to the students in 3-course blocks. Each 3-course block will take the average student hours to complete. After completion, the online course materials are available to the student for up to 2 years. The 3-course blocks of instruction are as follows: 1. Career Foundations - Block 1: Discovering Your Options + Business Writing Fundamentals + Leadership Communications 2. Career Essentials - Block 2: Sculpting Your Value Proposition + Leadership Essentials + Leading Teams 3. Career Readiness - Block 3: Selling Yourself + Managing Conflict + Leading Change 4. Career Success - Block 4: Activating Your Plan + Leading the Leaders + Workplace Readiness 3

4 A blended learning approach is recommended for the delivery of the OCPP to the students. Although the courses are delivered online to the students, the program should include seminars and facilitated activities for the students, like those described earlier in this document. TRAIN-THE-TRAINER Personnel from Peregrine Academic Services are available to assist the academic institution with establishing and implementing the blended learning program for both EYP and the OCPP. Additionally, Peregrine provides program guides, course syllabi, and instructor guides with the programs. The level of assistance required will vary by institution. Course Materials The program guides include: 1. Program Description 2. Program Outcomes 3. Program Assessment Plan The course syllabi include: 1. Course Description 2. Course Outcomes 3. Module Outcomes 4. Instructional Summary 5. Course Assessment Plan The course instructor guides include: 1. Course Description 2. Course Outcomes 4

5 3. Module-by-Module Instructor Requirements 4. Grading Activities and Student Submissions 5. Student Engagement 6. Student Assessment Onboarding the Institution The Client Onboarding Packet is a document to record the information required to establish the academic institution as a client for Peregrine Academic Services. The onboarding packet is not a legal contract (Peregrine does not require the institution to sign a contract); rather, it is a tool used to record information needed to supply services to the client institution. The onboarding packet identifies: 1. Contact Personnel from the Client Institution. 2. Service Requirements specific to the Client Institution and any required Customization 3. Payment Information once the services are rendered to the Client Institution. Assistance with Seminar Preparation Peregrine Academic Services can assist in a variety of ways with preparing for the student seminars. Such assistance, often called train-the-trainer, includes: 1. Providing formative and summative reports used to evaluate student learning while completing the online courses. These reports can indicate both weak and strong areas of learning, which can subsequently be used to guide the seminar activities by building upon the strength-trends and improving upon the weak-trends. 2. Sharing best practices in career preparedness that Peregrine personnel learn from other academic institutions. Peregrine s programs and services are delivered throughout the world and personnel regularly attend conferences and forums where best practices are identified. Whenever possible, we are happy to share these best practices with our client institutions. 5

6 3. Recording short videos regarding career skills that can be shared with the students during the seminars. 4. Assisting with the development of an employer engagement plan. The best guest speakers for the seminars are the potential employers within the community. These speakers can address the topic of career readiness from their perspective and share their success stories, much like the videos within EYP do. The students will be most engaged when they can learn from people within their community. 5. Providing any available supplemental materials related to career development and softskills. These materials can be used to augment the seminar with additional learning activities. Assistance with the Seminars It is best if the client institution conducts the seminars with the students; however, Peregrine Academic Services can assist with these seminars. The seminars can be an invaluable tool used to bring the students together with the employer community and leverage talents across multiple spectrums. The types of assistance that Peregrine can provide during the seminar include: 1. Facilitate personality-type testing such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Peregrine is an authorized trainer for the MBTI. 2. Be a guest speaker for the seminar via GoToMeeting or another web-based tool. Peregrine team members can deliver short talks in Spanish, French, German, Russian, Mongolian, Portuguese, and Turkish on topics related to employment soft-skills, career readiness, and future employment development. 3. Help design the seminars based on our lessons learned and experiences. 4. Help identify potential guest speakers for the seminars. 6

7 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS Exploring Your Potential Discovering Your Options is a 6-module course to help students gain a clear sense of who they are, what they want to achieve, what skills and experience they should leverage, and what will make them truly happy. Course 1 Learning Outcomes are: 1. Explore a variety of career opportunities to gain skill diversity and capitalize on life experiences. 2. Develop a plan of action for achieving career goals that align to their dreams. 3. Identify and create strategies to overcome challenges in achieving desired goals. 4. Demonstrate clear and intentional language when speaking about personal and professional goal pathways. Sculpting Your Value Proposition is a 6-module course that supports students in packaging what they have to offer strategically to maximize opportunities. Students will identify their assets and liabilities to develop new pathways for improvement, map out organizations and key players within their chosen industry, and create a powerful network of connections to guide them while navigating career steps. Learning outcomes for this course are: 1. Objectively looking at self in relation to adding value to the marketplace 2. Develop a clear talent assessment 3. Design strategies for leveraging assets and improving liabilities through continued education 4. Aggregate expert resources and knowledge to effectively apply insights to career goals 5. Build a powerful network of connections to establish credibility, create opportunities, and expand professional pathways. 7

8 Selling Yourself is a 6-module course that refines student s ability to present and leverage their personal brand while experiencing new opportunities for growth. Building on activities from Course 1 and 2, Course 3 immerses students in a variety of real-life experiences including volunteering, branding, and social networking to demonstrate who they are, where they want to go and how they will get there. Learning outcomes for this course are: 1. Describe personal and professional attributes clearly in a timely and consistent manner using sales and marketing strategies. 2. Develop a personal brand that succinctly packages information gained from previous courses. 3. Identify and interpret potential opportunities in a variety of social networks and adjust pitch to meet the changes. 4. Evaluate and adapt communication behaviors to successfully and responsibly manage support networks. Activating Your Plan is a 6-module course which capstones the series, Exploring Your Potential. Through practical planning and careful review, students refine skills acquired in Courses 1, 2 and 3 to produce a dynamic toolkit for reaching their ideal life. Students demonstrate whom they have created themselves to be and the strategies they have developed to navigate and fulfill their potential. Expected learning outcomes for this course are: 1. Understand the impact of and prepare to make choices regarding major life decisions that affect the projected career path. 2. Develop a life plan of action to include intermediate steps, benchmarks, and outcomes and strategies that are in alignment with each action. 3. Create experiences for volunteering and mentoring that give back to communities while growing opportunities and increasing knowledge in a field. 4. Design pathways to access power and influential key players in an industry to become part of a vast network of opportunity. 8

9 Leadership Skill Development Business Writing is an 8-module course designed to teach the essentials of business writing. The course uses a variety of interactive and engaging lessons that include videos, animations, illustrations, graphics, and narrative instruction purposefully designed to teach the essence of business writing. Whether we mean to or not, we all make judgments about someone s ability and intelligence based on how well they write. Just as you likely made judgments while reading these letters, you also will be judged on your writing. Therefore, writing well matters. Writing well is imperative to your leadership career. Effective business writing is a skill; like exercising builds muscle, practicing writing for business will build better writing skills. Learning outcomes for Business Writing include: 1. Understand business writing principles. 2. Know proper punctuation and grammar usage. 3. Correctly format and write s. 4. Correctly format and write business letters. 5. Design and write technical reports. 6. Know the basics of writing for publication. Leadership Communications is an 8-module course focused on verbal, non-verbal, and presentation skills. Effective communication sounds as though it should be simple: Just say what you mean! Yet, frequently, what we try to communicate gets lost in translation. We think we say one thing, but the other person hears something else. This happens because each of us hears things differently based on our past experiences, age, education, culture, and family dynamics. This can result in misunderstandings, frustration, and conflict. The quality of our relationships at work and in our personal lives is directly tied to our ability to effectively communicate. Being able to accurately send and receive verbal information is an important skill for achieving almost any goal. In this course, we look at ways to communicate clearly so that your message is heard and understood as you intend it to be, avoiding the that s not what I took away from that conversation reaction. Learning outcomes are: 9

10 1. Develop clear communication skills. 2. Understand which kind of communication medium is best to use in a given situation. 3. Understand what gets in the way of effective communication and how to address those issues. 4. Understand and use active listening. 5. Design great presentations. 6. Give and receive feedback effectively. 7. Communicate in a non-defensive, calm manner. Leadership Essentials is an 8-module course designed to lay the foundation for being an effective leader in any organization. Being a leader means willingly becoming not just a role model, but also someone who consciously practices living their values, actively seeks out new ways of relating to others, and cares deeply about doing the right thing. Defining what you mean when you think of leadership and then getting very clear on what you want to embody as a leader are imperative to becoming the kind of leader you want to be. This course will help you do just that. Learning outcomes for this course are: 1. Able to answer the question What is leadership?. 2. Identify the values common among great leaders and understand which of those values matter most to you. 3. Discuss the power of positive thinking and how to apply it as a leader. 4. Assess what, how, and to whom you should delegate. 5. Discuss steps that lead to successful delegation. 6. Describe the five levels of leadership. 7. Identify behaviors you can use to grow as a leader. 10

11 Leading Teams is an 8-module course focused on team-based leadership. Leading teams is arguably one of the most important aspects of leadership. No matter what field you work in, chances are at some point you will be leading a team. And, as you reach higher levels of leadership, you yourself will likely be an integral part of a team. This course delves into techniques for leading teams effectively, but also offers ways to help make you a better and more effective team member. Learning outcomes for this course include: 1. Describe characteristics of effective teams. 2. Describe different types of teams and when to use each type. 3. Identify the four steps in Tuckman s model of team development. 4. Discuss the five dysfunctions of teams and how to address each. 5. Identify behaviors to improve team performance. 6. Describe the team problem-solving method. 7. Conduct effective team meetings. 8. Understand what makes a team of trust. Managing Conflict is an 8-module course that first defines workplace conflict and then seeks to teach ways to manage conflict in the workplace. Conflict is inevitable in every workplace and relationship, and yet most of us were never trained to understand or handle it well. Understanding what conflict actually is, and how it s experienced, is the first step toward minimizing or resolving conflict. Learning outcomes for this course include: 1. Describe what conflict is and some of the main reasons it happens. 2. Understand the stages of conflict. 3. Recognize and describe any personal resistance you have to resolving conflict. 4. Identify high-maintenance relationships in your workplace. 5. Apply the CALM model in addressing conflict. 11

12 6. Understand and apply guidelines and rules for conflict resolution. Leading Change is an 8-module course focused on the dynamics of leading change, an essential skill for any leader. Leadership is a process that is ultimately concerned with fostering change. Where there is no change, there is no need for leadership. Consistent with the idea that leadership is about fostering change, the leader can be looked at as a change agent, i.e., one who fosters change, whether the change is as simple as a new project or as complex as a large business merger. The learning outcomes for this course are: 1. Define what change is and why it s important to leadership. 2. Understand the change cycle. 3. Recognize common barriers to change. 4. Identify the common causes of resistance to change and understand approaches for minimizing that resistance. 5. List the DOs and DON Ts for thriving during times of change. 6. Understand what is required for effective change management. 7. Explain what you need to consider when communicating change to your team. 8. Apply John Kotter s eight-step process for effective change management. Leading the Leaders is an 8-module course that teaches the requirements needed to lead other leaders most successfully. By the time you reach the level where you are leading other leaders, chances are that you are already an excellent example of many fundamental leadership traits. This course will help you take your skills to an even higher level by looking closely at the traits of leaders at this level, including how to harness the power of recognition, coaching other leaders to be their best, creating the next generation of leaders through mentoring, and creating a legacy. Learning outcomes for this course are: 1. Explain traits needed to be an effective high-level leader. 2. Understand recognition and positive feedback. 12

13 3. Lead your leaders through self-assessments. 4. Coach your leaders though common workplace issues. 5. Understand how to offer effective performance management. 6. Explain what is needed for a successful mentoring relationship. 7. Think specifically about the legacy you d like to create. Workplace Readiness is an 8-module course designed to prepare you for entering the highly dynamic, diverse, and competitive environment found in most companies, corporations, and non-profit organizations. This course will get you jump-started on new employee orientation so that you can truly unlock your potential as a valued, productive member of any organizational team. Learning outcomes for this course include: 1. Understand the modern workplace. 2. Know how to fit in and how to stand out, appropriately. 3. Understand how to succeed and advance in your career. 4. Understand the organization s expectations of you, the new employee. 5. Know how to appropriately send and receive messages within the workplace. 6. Understand the basics of company finance and why profits matter. 7. Demonstrate the expected work ethic. 8. Know how to take ownership of your job and accept the responsibilities. 9. Demonstrate quality internal and external customer service. 13