Serendipity35

New Jersey Institute of Technology (DISCLAIMER: It is where I work) is not immune from the economic taint that has infected public and private enterprises since the near global collapse last September 18th.  Though our undergraduate applications have increased more than any other state school in New Jersey, it is unclear if the prospective incoming students will be able to afford the discounted tuition that is available to in-state residents.

NJIT has a long history of academic excellence.  We graduate top-notch engineers, architects, programmers and information management professionals, but because of our narrow geographic recruitment area, many potential students don't even know who we are.

That changed yesterday.

NJIT is taking its fundamental strengths and areas of expertise --excellent academic instruction and distance learning-- and we are offering them to the world.

"If you’re searching for an online master’s program or a “hot topic” graduate certificate, you should know this about NJIT:the university pioneered distance learning. Working in the late 1970s,two NJIT professors created the software, and the teaching methods, used to support some of the first distance-learning classes. In fact,the phrase, Virtual Classroom® was coined and registered as a trademark at NJIT"

"Know, also, that NJIT has affordable tuition. This year, the Princeton Review named NJIT one of the nation’s Best Value Colleges. And this spring, NJIT is introducing an online tuition rate that,pending approval in April by the NJIT Board of Trustees, will help online students who live outside New Jersey save on tuition.  So if you’re considering an online master’s program or a graduate certificate, know this:  NJIT will give you the skills you’ll need to work successfully in the 21st century global marketplace."

"We offer short term, graduate level certificate programs and fully accredited, fully online master degree programs that can make you more employable and help you advance your career and give you a leg-up on your competition"

"The majors that NJIT offers -- majors in engineering and science, technology and management -- are those most sought after by employers. Every year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers publishes a list of majors that attract the highest salaries. And every year the majors offered at NJIT top that list. "

When the Employme! training program at NJIT officially ended in January, the job search for its graduates began in full swing. Though included in parts of the soft-skills curriculum segments each week during their training, the number of the program's yet-to-be-employed graduates called for a shift into more intense post-skillset instruction in how to find (and actually achieve) full gainful employment.

The employment backgrounds of the students were diverse. Some students were trying to reenter the workforce after catastrophic injuries ended their former occupations. Some students were disabled from birth and had never held down a real paying job. When paid internship opportunities were offered to the remaining unemployed students, a curious pattern began to emerge: students who had been employed were eager to interview for (and get) an internship; students who had never been employed, while at first excited by the prospect of the opportunity, began to express concerns about why they couldn't take one of the intern positions.

One student began to have misgivings about the commute from home to work (he was a student who showed up for classes so often that he was likely to be inhabiting one of our labs on days when class wasn't scheduled). Another student, one who graduated 2 complete programs in the Employme! curriculum, declined an interview --even after he was assured he'd have full access to the adaptive technologies he used in the classroom-- because he thought vision difficulties might make him too slow to do any actual work.

There was more than self-confidence (or its lack) in play, here.  When questioned about their general interest in an internship, students disabled from birth listed reasons why the internship wasn't a proper fit; students recovering from disabling injuries listed the reasons why they would be an asset to their potential boss.  To those students who had been separated from their jobs due to injury, employment opportunity offered then a chance to climb back in the saddle, again.  Those students who had grown up never expecting  the possibility of employment, had never even seen the horse.  Not participating in the work environment, despite their skills training at NJIT, was something that their life experiences outside the classroom reinforced every day.

The available internships at NJIT are to provide assistance to the instructional designers to support NJIT's course catalog transition from WebCT/Blackboard to Moodle.  Interns will be expected to provide support directly to the instructional designers and faculty as course materials are migrated to the new environment.  The intern's tasks will include editing course summaries, reformatting existing content and assisting faculty solve incompatibilities between the retiring LMS and Moodle.  In order to reconcile the disconnect between students who have general concerns about their abilities to perform the duties of real employment and the needs of the instructional designers to have productive interns complete assigned work, the decision was made to use Moodle to teach Moodle.

I created an instance of Moodle that will solely be used to have students practice support tasks with Moodle.  Each student, regardless of their expressed interest in an internship, has been provided an empty  practice course in which to learn the basic tasks of course creation and modification.  They will be given tasks to perform involving course material editing within their own course to practice the types of tasks a Moodle support person might be required to perform.  They will be trained in course resource creation and editing and other tyical tasks that fall within the job description of the internship.  The students who are eager to return to the workplace will have a chance to learn marketable skills, the students who are hesitant to pursue the internship opportunity will be directly exposed to the tasks they would be required to perform as if they were already working as an intern.

The challenge the students will face is not so much how to configure Moodle and edit course materials,  but it will be to demonstrate to themselves that they can perform in a workplace enviromment as well as anyone and through their  accomplishments realize that they can be gainfully employed.  Once they recognize the horse, the hope is that they will try and climb into the saddle for the very first time.