> What are my strengths as a Verb? <

By Walter Rodriguez, B.S.C.E., B.D., M.Arch., Ph.D., C.G.C., P.E.

Professor Rodriguez is the Founder of Coursewell.com and PERSIST (Program for Enhancing Student Retention by Immersing Students in STEM/STEAM Technologies. ) He was awarded the Harvard Foundation Medal and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at MIT, before acquiring 24-year experience teaching managerial & technical courses.

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What are my strengths as a verb?: Developing Your Career While Pursuing Your Passion

Question: Is there a better & faster way to reach your career life goals while pursuing your passion?

Although there is a better & faster way to develop a successful & rewarding career, it’s not taught in most schools. [Spoiler: It involves a stepwise career process—including defining your career-life goals.]

In this blog, you will learn the career process and how to define your strengths as a verb. It is inspired by the Concurrent Engineering and the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) methodologies—where you define, design and implement your goals using a specific set of criteria—ensuring that your objectives are attainable within a certain time frame. The career process can help you arrive quicker at your desired career while actively pursuing the things that you love to do in life.

In this processes, you will be defining your strengths as a verb to clearly convey action (cooking, drawing, creating, making, building, running, playing, explaining, teaching, reading, prescribing, negotiating, selling, curating, writing), or occurrence (doing, happening, becoming), or a state of being (standing, governing, leading, managing, meditating, following, executing). In this way, you won’t have to pre-define what you want to be (artist, advertiser, blogger, builder, carpenter, designer, physician, technologist, scientist, engineer, lawyer, nurse, teacher, pharmacist, marketeer, beach bum). Reason: It is estimated that the average person changes their careers three to seven times in their life span. And it’s likely that your future career doesn’t exist now. Or that your career desires will likely change over time. That has been my working experience, as an entrepreneur and professor.

Admittedly, in my youth, I was extremely confused. Originally, I wanted to be an architect (encouraged by a mother and uncle that saw me drawing the “plans” of my childhood home) and I ended up becoming a civil engineer and project manager. Later, I became a textbook writer, entrepreneur, designer, builder, and professor (of course, not all at the same time!).

Since I didn’t really know myself or what I ultimately wanted to do (or be), I failed many times along a very tortuous, slow path before arriving at enduring success in academia, business, and life. Certainly, I could have skipped a few of my missteps, academic degrees, ventures, jobs, and certifications along the way—if I had known a better, faster way to discover and execute my career-life goals. Throughout life, I have observed extremely successful people arrive and do what they want quicker than me. Fortunately, if you are able to effectively implement the career process and define your strengths as a verb, you won’t have to repeat your mistakes.

To make the learning a bit fun, I have sprinkled my notes with a bit of humor (warning: not very good jokes though), exercises, projects, and personal (maybe depressing and joyful) anecdotes.

So, how did I arrived at the career process?

In my late 20s, I wrote and published McGraw-Hill textbooks titled Interactive Engineering Graphics, Visualization, and The Modeling of Design Ideas. These textbooks described the engineering process for designing & building products, systems, and services—concurrently. The career process is based on what I have learned from researching, writing, teaching, and applying the axioms in my books and papers as well as from my career as an entrepreneur, architect, builder, designer, consultant, professor, writer, and mentor for thousands and thousands of students and career seekers.

Is there really a career process? Instinctively, you may already know that there can’t be a secret or magic bullet or a single path to developing a successful career life, since you can find many people that haven’t followed a conscientious process to success. You may arrive at a successful career by following a process or simply by reading the biographies of successful individuals. You may also seek to acquire the collective wisdom of family, friends, and career professionals by asking many questions. Along the way, you may be lucky to find someone willing to take the time to advise and mentor you. In any case, regardless of choosing a specific career process, or model, or methodology, I usually recommend seeking and interviewing folks that have had the experience of developing a successful career life. Most of these individuals have learned their work-life lessons by trial-and-error or even by following their instincts. Although admittedly very few of these persons have actually followed a conscientious process, I like to advocate a process to shorten the search.

By following the career process (and simultaneously seeking the advice of career professionals) you should be able to reach your goals more rapidly, efficiently, and effectively. That is, you can eliminate a lot of trial-and-error mistakes and missteps. And it might turn out to be cheaper too since there are opportunity costs associated with the career search.

I hope the notes below will assist you to chart a better career path—faster. But please feel free to deviate or ask questions. Of course, if you like to follow a process, you will need to have the patience to follow along and engage with the projects and exercises in this blog. You may also participate in a free year-long career course being offered freely at Coursewell.com.

Like many experienced mentors, advisors, and faculty, I learned that you can map out a better career (Kalish, A. 2020) path from the experience of others and by examining models and research in the career development field (Simmons U. 2020). And, along the way, you can also learn by designing, building, and modeling productive human behaviors—while avoiding unproductive habits (Covey, S.R. 1994). Ultimately, it’s all about developing your interest in self-improvement and personal development.

Your first step is to try to discover yourself and your passions.

Exercise: Seat out in a private, peaceful, or fairly open space to meditate. Start by focusing on your breath. You will notice that your mind will wander but you can come back to focusing on your breathing again and again. Some experienced meditators recommend silently counting slowly to four while you take a very deep breath filling your lungs; then, holding the breath for 7 counts, and finally exhaling for 8 counts. It doesn’t have to be perfect. This just helps you keep your mind focused on the present moment. It might be helpful to repeat this action three times before coming back to just focusing on your breathing again.

Now, as your mind wanders again see if you can focus on projecting your life’s future. That is, try to project yourself into the future life (unfortunately, there are no times machines but you can use your imagination to visualize how you see yourself in the distant future!). What do you want to accomplish in life? Where do you want to be? How will you spend your time? What type of people would you like to meet and work with? I remember as a teenager chatting with my girlfriend about our future together. My best line was: “Imagine that we are very old and retired looking back at our lives together.”

That is your future. And, I truly believe that you can build and predict your future by creating it in your mind’s eye first. Then, bringing those memories almost every time you are planning to take your next career step or deciding on your next adventure or project. This in itself should keep you focused on your goals. And will help shorten your path towards your ultimate goals. By the way, if your goal is just to become rich, learn from the experience of very wealthy individuals who tells us “my goal was never about making money … it was about keeping score.” Yes, there is no problem with being overly ambitious. But, I would recommend arriving at it by thinking about your positive impact on the World or other people. Many entrepreneurs and companies are realizing that pursuing an ethical human-centered approach helps rather than hurts the bottom line.

As you try to determine where or how you see yourself in the future, you can think about someone that you truly admire? You may also try to identify your current abilities and strengths.

By modeling, chatting, and interviewing successful people that you truly admire, you can quickly discover your interests and yourself. These days you may even contact family, friends, entrepreneurs, professionals worldwide thanks to video conferencing tools, like Zoom and many others. I recommend, contacting and chatting with professionals in your desired career field(s). You can search the web or join work and social networking communities like LinkedIn. You may even play the journalist or writers’ role, or the disciple trying to write an article about successful people. I have found that most people enjoy being interviewed and with a few exceptions, they can be very willing and helpful if they find the time.

Guess what? You don’t have to limit yourself to one particular field or life-work activity since you may already have multiple interests, abilities, and strengths. It’s a matter of discovery.

“The phrase all roads lead to Rome means that there are various ways to reach a conclusion, many ways to achieve a goal, and many routes to arrive at a decision. The idea is that there are many methods to accomplish something, all leading to the same result.” (Grammarist 2020)

Like the phrase “all roads lead to Rome” there are indeed many ways to succeed in your desired career path. But I believe there is a way to get there a bit faster, as I indicated earlier.

Besides you “can expect to change jobs and professions multiple times” and your “career path will no longer follow a simple ‘learn-to-work’’ trajectory, as Heather E. McGowan, co-author of ‘The Adaptation Advantage,’ likes to say, but rather a path of ‘work-learn-work-learn-work-learn.” (Friedman, T.L. 2020).

Let’s continue by discussing the modeling of very (very, very, very) successful individuals like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

As you probably know, Apple’s Founder Steve Jobs (2011-11-04) was able to successfully pursue his passion for the arts, humanities, calligraphy (Chokshi., N. 2016), minimalism, and aesthetics by applying some of its design principles (Reid, M. 2019) to user-interface/user-experience (UI/UX), proportionally spaced fonts, typography, software application development, and computer hardware innovation (Isaacson, W. 2011, Zell J. 2020.) What was Jobs’ mindset? He wanted to think differently or out-of-the-box, as shown in the quote below.

“... technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”

— Steve Jobs, Founder, and Former CEO, Apple

I am fairly sure that if you ask a friend, teacher, advisor, or mentor: "What type of career should I pursue?" they might respond, "follow your passion," or "find what makes you happy," or "follow your calling." And they may even recommend asking yourself: "Is it even possible to make a living from the thing that I am most passionate about?" (O'Brian, S., 2019).

In my career experience, we should instead ask ourselves: "What are my strengths** as a verb?" Or, you may try to identify the kinds of things you are good at or what you may become good at with reasonable effort? For instance, you might be very good at creating, designing, memorizing, observing, solving, making, writing, reading, quantifying, cooking, gaming, playing, drawing, teaching, socializing, meditating, or caring, managing, coordinating, policing, leading, joking, engaging, farming, planting, etc. Answering “What are my strengths** as a verb” will help us become aware of our strengths without having to name a specific career or profession (i.e., architect, engineer, designer, writer, teacher, contractor, nurse, physician, social worker, manager, technologist, programmer, accountant, carpenter, chef, etc. )

[**Note: “Strengths’ Awareness” is part of the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis technique (Schooley, S. 2019), as we will discuss in Coursewell’s “Career Strategy” course.]

Then, based on identifying your strengths as a verb, you may ask: Can I develop a passion for an in-demand career (i.e., STEM/STEAM) or a unique entrepreneurial opportunity) to maximize my opportunities for success?

If you don't yet have the skillsets or, better yet, the mindset for a specific field you want to pursue, you may ask: Do I have the perseverance and motivation to learn and eventually master an in-demand field (or an entrepreneurial niche opportunity)? Ultimately, that might be the best question to ask! Do you agree? If not, please post a rebuttal in the comment section of this blog.

As a Forbes author indicated:

“Instead of looking towards the things you are passionate about, think instead about the things you are good at. What skills do you have? What kind of work do you enjoy doing? What type of job do you think you’d be good at? What motivates you? Think about the people you admire professionally, whether you know them personally or not. Then ask yourself what it is about them that you admire and is that something that you could emulate?

If you focus on your strengths and what you know you can do well, rather than what you are passionate about, you’ll end up with a much more realistic and achievable goal or plan for success.”

— Forbes, accessed January 31, 2019.

Of course, we know that Apple’s founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, successfully pursued his passion for the arts, design, and later on: technological innovation. Do you think he is the exception or the norm? To participate, please post your answer on this forum.

Can you research how some well-known individuals (like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates) attained success in their business careers? Please post your findings in the blog comments.

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Here is another anecdote from my personal experience: I have been asking the above career questions to my students for many years. I don’t know why—perhaps, I was still trying to find my own path before I learned it’s a process.

In my career development research, I found a “methodology” that you may use to build a job-resilient career while pursuing your passion—regardless of your background, credentials, or work experience. Of course, I will continue proving some of my own experience. The advantage of listening to my story is that I was an average student from high-school until I graduated with my first bachelor’s degree. And I found that it took a unique opportunity, a bit of curiosity, and lots of persistence to succeed in my desired career.

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Check: SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals are established using a specific set of criteria that ensure your objectives are attainable within a certain time frame.

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But as I admitted earlier: I failed many times before eventually fulfilling my passion for writing, teaching, designing & building things (i.e., homes, webpages, applications, mousetraps***). [If you are curious about the better mousetrap*** thing, you can Google Scholar "Rodriguez, W. The Modeling of Design Ideas” (1992).]

Humbly, I am afraid to say: “I believe I have accomplished most of my initial career goals, but there are more mountains to climb.” And again, I hope that by reading this blog, you will learn from my career experience, failures, and successes. 

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As a young child, I had an inkling for drawing houses. I would walk to a residential construction site in my neighborhood and visualize what the house would look like when completed. So I thought I had a natural aptitude for drawing and even designing homes. 

I decided that I would be an architect, and an engineer, and a home builder in my teen years—yes, all of them! But I had no idea how to get started in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction field. One of my uncles was a civil engineer that was designing houses (rather than designing building structures or roads) since there were no architects or residential designers in my hometown.

Interestingly, he drew the residential plans for the first house I remember living in for many of my preteen years. When I was ready to go to college, I went to him to ask for advice, but he had gone to serve in the USA military, and later on, I sadly found out that he had died as a consequence of a head injury. 

I felt sad for many months, not knowing how to react or what to do. I had lost both my uncle and my potential mentor. I should have kept looking for an advisor or mentor but unfortunately, I didn’t.

Eventually, I was encouraged by my parents and friends to move on. And I decided to honor my uncle’s memory and continue pursuing my desired career with more determination than ever! Unfortunately, there were no architecture programs on the tropical USA island where I was growing up. So, I decided to become a civil engineer since there was an engineering school about 20 miles from my home. I registered in the program and moved to the campus facilities. But my first semester was an academic disaster. Simply put, I didn't possess the STEM or mathematical background needed to succeed in a highly technical field.  That year I joined the military (the Air National Guard — training during weekends) since it allowed me a small stipend to continue my engineering studies.

The next year, after my first-year academic failure, I decided to stay home and travel to the courses I had not had to drop. I considered changing fields, but I would lose my financial assistance and disappoint my parents, who had to make some financial sacrifices to pay tuition and board.

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In this “Build a Job-Resilient Career” blog series, I will be drawing on a wealth of data, information, knowledge, business intelligence, and the wisdom of successful working professionals. As we move forward, I will refer to peer-reviewed research and articles on the “career development” subject.

As earlier, I will be sharing a bit of my personal journey on the path of career self-discovery and eventual mastery. Like many job-seekers, admittedly, my career starting knowing virtually nothing about what “building a successful career” would entail—particularly for someone from very humble origins in a poverty-stricken US territory—in terms of goal-setting, self-assessment, SWOT analysis, responsibility, motivation, education, training, branding, quality-standards, connections, networking, resumes, internships, apprenticeships, and mentors.

Yes, like in business, I think that there is critically important to position yourself for building a job-resilient career while pursuing your passion. At this point, I recommend joining my free “AI Managerial Strategy/Career Strategy” course at Coursewell.com to get started on your journey. Of course, please read on and continue seeking advice from career professionals or join one of the many online in-demand programs in the country.

“Steve Jobs did it. So can you, and here is how!”

— Walter Rodriguez, Ph.D., P.E., CLO, Adaptiva Corp

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Like present times, I grew up in a couple of uncertain and challenging decades. And, honestly, it was a bit chaotic. But, fortunately, a caring environment. My loving parents had no formal education beyond basic public-schooling (what was called at the time “normal” or “basic” schooling—something resembling a bit less than a current high-school diploma.) To wit, my father had to take a “high-school” equivalency exam to qualify as a public servant (i.e., police detective). He had to take several times to pass. But he was motivated and resilient. Not knowing better, each time he took the exam, he would try to memorize the questions that he had wrong until he eventually passed the exam. [Later on, he became a successful insurance salesman.] At the time, my mother had self-study to take and pass the “normal teaching” certificate to work in elementary rural schools.

Like perhaps many of you, I didn’t have an advisor or mentor to guide me throughout my “career development process.” Therefore, I ended up making lots of wrong decisions and career mistakes along the way. But intuitively, I knew that I was on the wrong path and needed to take action.

After a one-year dead-end, a low-paying job as a civil servant (building permits official), I discovered that seeking my career objective at the time (i.e., architectural design) didn’t necessarily lead to a life of deprivation and sacrifices for my family and me.

I decided that I could do better for my family and me by actually following my passion. I applied the principles of observation and curiosity. Simply put, I took the liberty of asking seemingly-wealthy individuals visiting the local building-permits’ office. “What do you do?” Eventually, I discovered a pattern: They were not following the “Path of the Calf.” (Sam Walter Foss, 1895). Like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they didn’t follow many of the traditional career paths at the time (i.e., engineer, lawyer, teacher) but rather developed their own way!

“One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er hill and glade
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migration of that calf,
And through this winding woody-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And travelled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And thus, before we were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.”

— The Calf Path – Sam Walter Foss – 1895

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

— Steve Jobs

Although at the time I didn’t have my desired academic degree or architectural design credentials, I decided nevertheless to pursue a job in a newly developed Architecture & Planning firm by starting as a “professional delivery person” (now I might have been called an Amazon or UPS partner or Uber driver) between government permit approval offices, contractors and subcontractors. I ask one of the well-to-do folks who was bringing construction plans for reviewal and approval by the agency: Can I help link you link their A/E/C office’s clerical tasks (i.e., delivering plans for review). He invited me to lunch. And when I see him hesitate a bit I also offered to pre-review their construction plans and permits for free. And that he was going to be my Frank Louis Wright. That was the key to getting started in architecture and later complete my second, third, and fourth academic degrees and career certifications.

You got it: My career has been an on-the-job training while I was pursuing my credentials and certifications. And, as a consequence, that is the learning model we have developed at Coursewell.com: work-based courses.

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Lesson: Following your passion is doable if you can find the right role models and seek practical advice from people that have gone through the career path you envision. And, of course, you must be persistent, observant, and curious!

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Recap: I grew up in a fishing town on a USA Caribbean island, where none of the universities offered the academic program I wanted to pursue: architecture. So, I choose to study civil engineering rather than architecture—which didn’t make me very happy earl on. At the time, without resources, I couldn’t afford to move to the continental USA to pursue my dream career.

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Admittedly, for the last few decades, I have been studying self-help books --- as a way to improve both myself and my teaching and entrepreneurship career. In reading those books, I have learned "critical success factors (CSF) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI)" as well as the career skills necessary to succeed in both life and business. 

From teaching and interacting with students at a 2-year public community college early in my teaching career; to teaching and research at Ivy graduate schools for several decades, I have learned seven (7) key career skills we need to succeed in the information age. Better yet, I also learned how to develop and teach those critical skills to my students. Below are the 7 key career skill that is essential to our success:

1. Confidence - According to Dr. Ivan Joseph, confidence (or rather, self-confidence) is "the ability to believe in yourself to accomplish any task, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulties, no matter the adversity." Fortunately, self-confidence is a "learn-able" skill. You may develop confidence through consistent participation in sports or hobbies or anything you can become good at or passionate about to persist despite challenges. Reason: Building confidence takes "repetition, repetition, repetition." For instance, if you like to learn how to shoot a 3-pointer, you practice consistently using the 3-point technique. [This is related to what Malcolm Gladwell calls the "10,000-hour" rule --- which we will discuss in Skill # 7 below).]

2. Collaboration is the ability to "work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit." Anya Kamenetz's "How to Raise a Brilliant Child, According to Science" states that "collaboration is everything from getting along with others to controlling your impulses so you can get along and not kick someone else off the swing." Yes, she refers to kids, but haven't you observed and became frustrated by adults or coworkers or friends behaving similarly? I have experienced this at all levels during my long career (but I better stop there before I get in trouble.) 

3. Communication includes exchanging data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in both verbal and visual form. In the information age, learning how to use productivity office software (spreadsheet and presentation tools) is almost as relevant as speaking, writing, reading, and, more importantly, listening. In fact, listening is an essential ability to build long-lasting relationships, as further discussed in Skill # 6 below.

4. Systems Thinking (and critical thinking) involves using framework and models. This requires a full blog article. But, the video below is a great start! 

5. Creative Innovation is essential to our career growth and development. It is not "the left-brain/right-brain binary that we've come to believe."Fortunately, creative innovation can be learned since it's essentially a process. It's about being willing to explore tens or hundreds or thousands of ideas that may ultimately fail. It involves being willing to seek solutions after failing and failing until you find a working idea.

6. Reading people's emotions is key to enduring relationships and successful negotiations, according to Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro ["Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate"]. For instance, "expressing appreciation," that is, finding and showing value in what others say, "think, feel, or do," is a powerful tool. If you meet a seemingly stressed-out colleague, ask: What do you think your colleague is thinking? Is it better to leave him alone or ask him/her if everything is okay? or try to identify what worries him or her, based on what you know about this person and his/her family? How do you think they feel, and will it be better to wait and come back later?

7. Specialty Content Knowledge - The last (but essential) career skill is the specialty content knowledge; that is, being an expert in your selected career. According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes "10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field." Surprisingly, "natural talent" is not as important--and that's good news for the rest of us—content knowledge building on the other six skills. Initially, when you start learning a difficult or tedious subject, you/we may feel inclined to abandon. But, ask yourself: How come many other folks in this field really like it. The answer is that they persisted until they became comfortable with the subject and finally love it. A career is like marriage or long-term friendships; you have to be patient and work at it every day, persistently.

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You can stay competitive by gaining a new in-demand skill every month. A recent article in the New York Times titled "Job Training Works. So Why Not Do More?" applauds the success of in-demand career certification training programs, such as Information Technology certification in computers and networking (i.e., CompTIA A+ and Network+), among several others.

The article focuses on the merits of a "Women in Technology" job-training program sponsored by a non-profit organization in New York. The success of job-training programs has been further replicated and validated by WorkAdvance --where a variety of organizations created experimental in-demand training programs spanning from IT to healthcare.  This real-life "experiment" demonstrated that job-training participants were able to increase earnings. Further, many participants felt very hopeful about their career path and future earning potential.

So, Job Training Works. But, as the article asks: Why not do more?

Job or career training has also been used very effectively to retain employees in their current jobs or promote employees. Employees value these types of on-the-job-training as much as their salary & benefits. And employers value the industry-based certification training credentials that participants obtain. So, everyone wins.

But, now, can career training programs also help retain and persistently engage students? In my experience leading and offering in-demand career training, sponsored by the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and private foundations, I have witnessed how these types of job-related, practical training can improve student retention---even when these extracurricular programs are not generally being regarded as a genuine academic pursuit for faculty.

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Although admittedly, I have accomplished most of my initial career goals, I still have a long way to go. And I believe that’s part of the fun of the career-process! For instance, I never became a University President as I had planned while on my third and fourth academic degrees. Nevertheless, that unfulfilled accomplishment didn’t turn out bad. [If you are curious and have a few seconds, I am going to tell really quickly: After being an endowed chair and director of a research institute for a couple of decades, I found that being in that position is one of those nightmarish jobs—unless you have a passion for wasting time in 8-to-5 meetings and hearing complains.

Seriously now. I hope that by reading this blog, you will learn from my career failures and successes. And that you will be able to accomplish your goals faster than me. By the way, that should not be such a great challenge.

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On Motivation: During the last twenty years, I have been incorporating practical work-based exercises in my online managerial and technical courses at Coursewell.com (from CompTIA A+ and Excel training to e-commerce and webpage development exercises) with great success. Essentially, close to 100% of the participants and students have passed our courses with at least a C+ average, and the general class average has been around B+.

I believe it's time to try this work-based approach with the general student population, particularly with at-risk students (or courses where there is a high dropout rate.) In general, I have found that we can retain students by using the following strategies:

• Use engaging activities and exercises that mimic real-life (and involve their peers)

• Focus on in-demand courses and programs related to what (at-risk) students do well.

• Provide pre-tests for the content or knowledge area to be discussed as well as tests and post-tests after students have reviewed the materials and obtained feedback, respectively

• Monitor students' progress using technology (such as Learning Management Systems' analytics)

• As the system analyzes and uncovers a problem (i.e., missing tests or low performance), seek early intervention (i.e., what's up?; why did you miss the pre-test?)

• Provide in-demand practical skills that at-risk students feel they can use to find a future job and improve their financial situation. Relevance is key!

• Implement individualized, self-paced career training experiences and programs in the student's area of interest.

• If a student is going to drop (or it's being forced to withdraw for a semester or year due to low grades), provide an alternative short career path, for instance, a one-semester career certification training program. It's an efficient and inexpensive way to keep at-risk students engaged and hopeful about their futures!

• Develop a strong support group by networking (i.e., invite at least three significant members to your career network every day.)

• Build strong career relationships (i.e., schedule at least one personal Zoom meeting per day with someone in your network to listen and share your daily activities and work experiences.)

• Study and earn relevant industry certifications in your field and, of course, add to your resume and career website. Yes, in the information age, you need to promote your accomplishments.

• Exercise, meditate, eat healthily, have fun, and be compassionate with yourself and others.

• Create a personal mission statement—including attainable goals and actionable tasks.

• Define your value proposition (i.e., what you are doing to contribute to your family, friends, society, community, and work environment.)

• For additional information about career development, please join our free AI/Managerial Strategy/Career Strategy course by contacting me at walter@coursewell.com.

  This blog is dedicated to “Mamita” and “La Familia.”

Improving Persistence & Retention with Timely Student-Support and Instructional Technologies.

Walter Rodriguez, Ph.D., P.E.

For the last two years, my students and I have explored how we can enhance students' persistence & retention by leveraging real-life student-support & instructional technologies.

In the process, we individually and collectively realized that while software systems & apps may provide opportunities to engage students, deciding to implement software apps for delivering fully-online student-support programs needed further analysis. Reason: Untested learning- and student-support-apps could potentially create institutional havoc if sufficient instructional- and student-support are not provided ubiquitously, in a timely, effective, and efficient way.

Rather than promoting software apps' flexibility and convenience, we explored the drawbacks of low student-persistence and how information systems could assist the process. Suitably, this article presents mobile-app constructs for facilitating student-support and student-mentor-faculty engagement. The findings have been applied to thousands of students/participants in a joint private-industry/government-sponsored, multiyear, career-certification training (not-for-credit) project and later tested in an academic (for-credit) setting. This student-faculty collaboration led to a peer-reviewed paper (Rodriguez, W. et al. 2019) co-authored with undergraduate students Taylor Bass, David Souza, Jessica Lynch, Michael Lystad, and Ashley White while they were still in college. [For your convenience, below are the excerpts from the paper, and we hope you will be able to implement some of the results and report back. For questions, or to request a copy of the paper, please contact the author at walter@coursewell.com.]

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Introduction

Could ubiquitous-learning software applications (or apps) be used to minimize the negative impact of students studying remotely? Could mobile devices (i.e., cellular smartphones) be used to improve students' retention and persistence with reliable online support and wireless communications? Can student-support apps be used to enhance the acquisition of knowledge from anywhere as well as improve student-mentor-instructor engagement?

The research reviewed the most impactful students' retention and persistence issues. And more importantly, it illustrates the online student-support strategies and natively-designed apps (Adobe 2018; Benson et al. 2013; Rodriguez 2015) that were designed and tested during a multiyear government-sponsored project. The project successfully delivered mentor-supported, video-based training to thousands of online students/participants. Besides, the paper shows sample prototypes apps, i.e., designed by students for their peers, in response to their unique experience taking online courses and studying remotely.

We discuss the online student-support strategies implemented while delivering the above non-credit training. Further, it shows the prototype app designs & policies developed to enhance student support and persistence via mobile devices. Also, the article analyzes the impact that learning and student-support apps may have on educational institutions. For instance, how these apps could potentially create institutional havoc if sufficient instructional- and student-support staff are not provided ubiquitously, in a timely, effective, and efficient way.

The paper (Rodriguez, W. et al. 2019) foresees that ubiquitous learning software applications have the potential to transform education accessibility, delivery, and student-support for anyone with a smartphone. Rather than promoting software apps' flexibility and convenience, this study analyzes the drawbacks and challenges that may occur when the institutions do not provide adequate student support. Suitably, the paper also presents mobile-app constructs for facilitating student-support and student-faculty engagement. Although strategies and functional design-requirements are given, the app system-development and implementation are beyond the scope of this paper.

While the research demonstrates how the online support and mentoring concepts were successfully applied for the retention of thousands of participants (i.e., military spouses) registered in a pre-professional, multiyear career-training certification program, it also examines the general problems and challenges that most college students are facing, regardless of delivery modality (online, mobile, hybrid and on-campus). Then, it provides recommendations, solutions, and app design-prototypes (i.e., user-interface, sample menus, mockups) to help minimize the potential impact of studying remotely, i.e., away from the on-campus student support structure, via mobile devices.

Two characteristics are analyzed, namely, student characteristics, and institutional characteristics. Alternative solutions are presented to increase the student retention rate and help students find a balance between work and study. One of the solutions consist of developing a robust and cross-functional mobile-learning student-support application to address the key issues and dimensions of well-being impacting students' persistence in college, particularly, online/mobile students. The research may be used by software developers to design better and more responsive learning and student-support apps.

Background

Research indicates that fully-online students (including community colleges and massive open online courses) have lower graduation and persistence rates than traditional or fully on-campus students. And, not surprisingly, mobile students face the same types of issues as their campus' peers. Nevertheless, the data is extremely complex to analyze, and the issue is still being debated among scholars (Haynie 2015). To understand the complexity of the problem (or challenge) at hand, a study done by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health examined college dropouts as well as graduates on their socioeconomic success and mental health profiles. This information was examined in five dimensions of well-being: (1) socioeconomic success indicators; (2) happiness/satisfaction; (3) mastery; (4) stress, and (5) depression. The results indicated that college students who dropped out of college ranged significantly on a chart of these five dimensions of well-being. There were many different types of groups investigated---including participants: (a) who averaged out on the list; (b) had higher income with less stress; (c) had higher income with high stress; (d) low income and low stress; and so on (Faas et al. 2017). Further, students' well-being is not simply based on their financial situation but also includes subjective well-being---including emotional contentment. Students should be understood as complex beings. Therefore, when assessing dropout rates at universities, it is most important to understand that there is no simple programmatic solution. Nevertheless, technical solutions (i.e., mobile apps, deep-learning), as well as big data and predictive analytics, may help anticipate issues and design ways to address the problems before it's too late (McMurtrie 2018).

Evidence: Reasons for Dropping Out

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the 6-year graduation rate for first time and full-time undergraduate students at a 4-year degree-granting institution in fall 2009 was 59 percent (The Condition of Education 2018). [The six-year completion for fall 2011 was 57% with some underrepresented minorities critically falling from 27% to 18% below that statistic (McMurtrie 2018).] With students dropping out of college, academic administrators and faculty are faced with a question: How can we minimize student dropout rates and maximize student persistence? Colleges are concerned with the high dropout rates, and many schools have discovered ways to increase the retention rate for at-risk students by flagging (identifying) students, providing in-class tutoring, and re-designing curriculum pathways for those students.

Public and private non-profit colleges have quite similar graduation rates, while private for-profit shows that less than thirty percent of men and women graduate through their institution. With this understanding, it's important to analyze how other schools have been able to increase their graduation rate and look at some ways that schools may be able to increase their graduation rate as well.

In 2015, the six-year graduation rates at a regional university fell to 42.9%, from 57% in 2011 (Bland 2016). Even while this finding was fairly consistent with other extended longitudinal retention surveys (Boden 2012; Van Stolk et al, 2007), it caused great disappointment. Therefore, a more detailed investigation of the problem was conducted. The research looked at "figures from five, six-year periods—2005-11, 2006-12, 2007-13, 2008-14, and 2009-15—which showed that on average, about two times as many full-time students dropped out than transferred to another college (Bland 2016). While this statistic is disheartening, a look at this university's graduation rate compared to nationwide schools shows that the problem runs deeper and broader in the USA.

Students drop out for numerous reasons. There are two big reasons why students drop out. The two groups are (1) student characteristics and (2) institutional characteristics. Student and institutional characteristics can lead to students dropping out (Chen 2012). The two categories will be broken down into further detail in the next two sub-sections to see how each impacts a student's decision on dropping out of college.

Student characteristics are a major reason why students drop out of college. These are the reasons that they feel personally and can be the factor of whether to stay or not. A study was done to find the characteristics that cause students to drop out, and it revealed that the problem has persisted for decades, for instance, a "review of twenty-five years of research on college student dropout identified the following variables that are related to drop out: (a) demographic, (b) academic, (c) motivational, (d) personality, (e) college environment, (f) financial, and (g) health" (Mashburn 2001,174). On the academic variable, first, is academics, students may find themselves merely struggling in classes or are not understanding it. Some are unable to handle all the freedom and may be skipping class or not completing their homework and assignments in a timely manner. Instead of putting an effort when they see themselves slipping, most give up, leading them to drop out. That can coincide with motivation. Students' demographic also affects student's retention rates. Students might feel out of place or do not have a lot of students that are like them (i.e., gender or race/ethnicity). And may consider transferring or drop out as they are not getting the social or cultural support. One of the biggest reasons that students drop out is because of financial reasons. Students may find that college has become too expensive and quit because they can no longer afford it. Sometimes, it's as simple as not having money to purchase textbooks. [More and more, this problem is being addressed by merely offering open-source materials.] Further, an increasing number of students have a part-time or even a full-time job and, simply, have difficulties regulating fun-work-study time in order to complete their homework by the deadline, since work might be taking up all of their time. But these are not the only reasons why students drop out (Mashburn 2001; Pantages and Creedon 1978).

Students may also drop out of college because of institution characteristics. Institution characteristics are "institutional demographics, structure, faculty resources, and financial resources" (Chen 2012, 492). Financial reasons are also part of institutional issues.  Adequate institutional funding and resources are a big part of retaining students. If the institution does not have enough resources and funds to provide services to keep the students active and to better themselves, problems arise very quickly. Also, the institution might not be able to afford certain academic programs or majors that students may be interested in, or they change programs too frequently—increasing the number of years to graduate. Further, if students choose a major that is not well-designed to maximize student retention, they may not feel motivated enough to persist in their degree. Another reason is faculty resources. If the faculty does not have the resources they need to help the students, they will easily fall through the cracks. The faculty might have too many students and might be unable to assist all of them. So, they might not be able to see if a student is not doing well or monitor and provide alternative assignments if the student is having difficulties on a subject.  One aspect is that "the dropout risk fluctuates by year, but the highest is in the first year (17.7%)" (Chen 2012, 495). Though the first year is the highest, students can still drop out in the next couple of years. This study looked at first-year institutions; it did find that the dropout was higher for the least selective public universities than those of any other kind (Chen 2012). This fact could be applied to universities where the acceptance rate is high. A pattern that may increase as fewer students pursue college after high school. With the acceptance rate being high, it's possible that some students who did not meet traditional academic standards may get accepted into the school, i.e. high-school prerequisite courses (Woods et al. 2018). Many students get accepted who might not have the adequate academic preparation, such as colleges serving a population where high-schools are not as demanding or are lagging behind in resources. One factor that universities may fail to recognize in a timely manner, is "the responsibility for acculturating and supporting students throughout the educational experience which might be relegated to non-academic personnel" (Stevenson 2007, 141-142). With non-academic staff being in charge of that responsibility, they might not fully understand or deeply analyze the complexity of the issues at hand. The university needs to change its views. Consider this question: With faculty being the most likely point of contact, shouldn't they be more directly involved with student retention and persistence (if they are provided adequate student-support)? Unfortunately, many schools are now delegating this responsibility to non-instructional advisors, rather than instructors.

Low graduation rates are by no means an uncommon occurrence. Schools across the nation are facing the same dilemmas, and all have attempted to implement their own solutions. According to College Factual (2018), one regional university in Florida has a higher first-year retention rate than other universities in the state, but still, it has a 52.5% six-year graduation rate. Why is that? Would it be due to aspirational reasons, where students may register at a lower-tier college and transfer to a higher-ranked college, during the second year? What can be done to retain those first-year students? (DeNicco et al. 2014). Could a virtual learning community, using mobile applications to connect everyone, help improve students' persistence? As more students are engaged with these devices, it's worth exploring ubiquitous-learning apps to engage students. But there are multiple challenges.

Ubiquitous Learning Challenge

"Nearly two-thirds of college students use their smartphones to study, and the global market for mobile learning is projected to grow by 36 percent annually. Colleges are experimenting with ways to engage students in and outside of class through their phones." (Chronicle of Higher Education 2018)

While ubiquitous-learning delivery modalities (Beckmann 2010), such as eLearning and mLearning (i.e., using mobile devices for gaining knowledge, engaging students, and tracking & assessing learning outcomes from anywhere) provide tremendous flexibility and convenience for online learners, if the offering institutions do not provide robust, engaging online student-support, these students may be quickly inclined to abandon or drop these online or mobile courses without seeking help from advisors, faculty, and campus staff support. For instance, a massive number of students, particularly online and mobile working students are taking longer to complete their degrees and, unfortunately, many never graduate for a variety of student and institutional characteristics enumerated earlier (Faas et al. 2017).

Researchers have investigated the effectiveness of ubiquitous (online, mobile learning) environments (Schwartz et al. 2017; Fozdar & Kumar 2017; Pechenkina et al. 2017). And earlier technical research---focusing on the actual development and implementation process of a non-commercial experimental mobile app---were early on impacted by the online student "retention" and "persistence" challenge (Rodriguez et al. 2015). The main issue is not necessarily about innovation or technology or the way apps are designed, as illustrated by this quote:

"The main drivers of innovation in higher education are not simply a function of what is technologically possible; they are—or should be—a function of pedagogically sound and cost–effective strategies that advance our institutional missions in ways that best serve our students, are fair to our faculty, and advance the interests of our communities." (Committee on Institutional Cooperation 2013)

Figure 1 below illustrates the user interface of an experimental (non-commercial) app developed by the first author. During the three-year beta-testing of this mobile learning app, designed for the participants in the aforementioned sponsored career certification training, it was realized that students were being challenged by issues not necessarily related to the technology itself but rather to online (off-campus) support, after traditional business hours.

This non-commercial, research experimentation helped identify the fundamental fault of focusing on technology alone (see above quote) and let to providing increasing levels of student support. The prevalent issue, while beta-testing the app, was the lack of student persistence and the resulting high dropout rates from learners that didn't proactively seek human assistance in a timely manner (i.e., advisors, instructors, and support staff), beyond the lessons, forums and programmatic self-help and video-linked tutorials provided via the experimental app (Figure 1).

Of course, this is not the only experimental app trying this mobile cellular approach. Some institutions are developing software apps to allow students to engage with faculty and their peers. For instance, one app, labeled "Hotseat," lets students ask questions, take polls, and facilitate (backchannel) in-class discussions (Chronicle of Higher Education 2018, pp. 31). Although these apps may help with engagement and student retention, they don't solve the persistence problem by themselves. And there lays the complexity of the problem.

This figure shows the user-interface and interactive features of an enabling non-commercial experimental technology, named "CourseWell." The software was developed by undergraduate students and faculty and consisted of natively-designed apps and systems. It was developed specifically by the first author and his collaborators as an experiment for enhancing ubiquitous forum discussions and student-faculty interaction via mobile devices. [Coursewell.com is an initiative of Florida Gulf Coast University's Institute for Technological Innovation.]

Figure 1. Non-Commercial Experimental mLearning Software App (Rodriguez et al. 2015)

 …

Analysis and Solutions: Engaging a Community of Mobile Learners

Overall, graduation and retention issues can stem from several different factors. These factors include lack of adequate academic preparation; personal problems; work-study scheduling; and financial challenges, among many other issues. Table 1 offers some sample issues and practical solutions for online, mobile learners, as well as for the student population in general.

Nowadays, most schools use Learning Management Systems (LMS) to support most, if not all, of their course offerings. Even if these courses are taught fully on-campus or in hybrid, blended or flipped (i.e., where students study and engage with the online instructional resources and then attend real-life on-campus sessions to work on individual or, better yet, collaborative activities to deepen the students' understanding of the content).

One online solution could consist in tracking, identifying and implementing more opportunities for students at-risk of dropping out—including proactive online mentoring and tutoring---based on real-time data derived from the LMS and predictive analytics. These LMS systems record and track every single student outcome, quiz, exams, project, and forum discussion. So, faculty can easily identify students that might be struggling in their classes by simply displaying their electronic grade book on the LMS. When they discover anomalies, they can generate an electronic message alerting the student of missing assignments or projects. The first author has used this technique with great results. And, surprisingly, the students in the class have provided evidence that they appreciate the early intervention (within the allowed ethical, privacy, security framework provided by the systems' tools).

Table 1: Issues and Solutions for Preventing Dropouts

Academic Preparation

Financial Resources

Work-Study Balance

Problem

Inadequate preparation for the rigor of college, either due to poor high school education or difficulties adjusting to the college workload.

Students and their families may not be able to afford to pay for tuition and books.

Many students are unable to regulate and balance work, life, fun, and study into their schedules. Students may not possess basic time-management skills or are simply working long hours (part-time or even full-time.)

Solution

Offer online tutoring- mentoring (provided by work-study students or retirees); create and offer personalized, and alternative assignments; require to complete prerequisites before each difficult assignment, and offer online/mobile prep learning opportunities for students that may be identified as at-risk.

Increase financial assistance and initiate micro-financing accessible to students from low-income families or provide mini-scholarships for work-study students.

Provide online/mobile time management tools and just-in-time tutorials. Also, an interactive application can assist students to manage their time more effectively.

Track and intervene, based on timely data about the students' progress, performance and outcomes.

Source: Lystad 2018

Currently, many institutions with low-retention rates do not offer online tutoring and mentoring services for at-risk students, while they might already be providing mentorship programs for athletes and honor students. That is, not all students have access to or are aware of opportunities to have an online mentor. Online tutoring and mentoring can lead to a better feeling of belonging for students. In a study performed by Colvin and Ashman (2010), it was found that peer mentoring was a successful way to make students feel a sense of belonging (Colvin & Ashman, 2010). Peer mentoring was determined to be a motivating factor for students to stay and succeed at a university. In addition, tutoring is an excellent way for students to seek out help from other students who have already taken courses. Having a peer tutor helps students understand topics explained at their level. Both online peer mentoring and tutoring may be delivered cost-free (or minimal cost), as the tutors and mentors might already be compensated with service learning hours, for instance. And more work-study students might be able to participate from anywhere, anytime (even on weekends and evenings).

Whenever possible, university foundations may also help to implement further scholarships and financial assistance for students that are struggling to meet tuition rates. Many schools offer scholarships to students who excel in academics even when those students are less likely to drop out. But students who are struggling academically pose a larger impact on retention and graduation rates. Providing micro-financing tools for tuition payments and textbooks might be developed by partnering with private corporations or non-governmental organizations.

For those students who struggle with academics, the online mentors/tutors previously mentioned could help them submit applications for assistantships. Financial aid is already offered for students who cannot afford college by the university and by the state. Universities should simply make students more aware of the aid that is available and consider partnering with private companies to provide micro-financing when students are unable to qualify for current aid. More importantly, faculty could choose to utilize more open-source content. Rather than requiring expensive textbooks, professors can use online open-source textbooks and instructional materials. This would save students hundreds of dollars per semester and lead to overall improved student persistence and well-being.

TRIO (2018) Student Support Services is a federal outreach program designed to identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds and offers many services including academic and career advising, tutoring, peer coaching, workshops, summer bridge programs, and computer lab to name a few. When students are accepted at a university as their college of choice, they receive an email from TRIO SSS stating that they could apply for the program. To be a part of TRIO SSS and use their service one has to either be a first-generation college student, be considered to have low income or have a disability. TRIO student support services include financial literacy, and financial workshops and some students receive a scholarship. The required advising meetings are personal, and the advisors are all equipped with knowledge of the university and are able to answer any questions. Further, they keep notes of the students on the computers and have access to the students' grades.

Since TRIO SSS is a federally funded program, statistics are gathered often, and a report showing the completion rate for student support service participants seeking bachelor's degrees who were full-time, first-time first-year students at four-year institutions went from 42 percent to 51 percent (Ginder et al. 2015). This increase may not seem significant but TRIO SSS supported 103,691 students at four-year institutions and 101,065 students at two-year institutions, and the fact that these students even through adversity are able to graduate is excellent. With further studies in the program, there should be advancements in continuing to increase the percentage of graduates. Could a similar program be implemented online for all at-risk students?

With adequate funding, a similar program could be implemented online. But the school would have to find an automated way to identify students that fall into the at-risk category (i.e., the danger of potentially dropping out). Fortunately, as mentioned earlier, universities are already using big data and predictive analytics to analyze large amounts of data from former students' records in order to identify those current students, many from low-income families, who seemed most likely to drop out of school. Although not a simple project, this could be implemented at scale by developing a machine-learning/deep-learning algorithm developed for this purpose. Of course, academic counselors might need to be retrained in order to evaluate their students and implement interventions. Proactive counselor meetings should be required every semester so that the students' well-being is evaluated in addition to their curriculum pathway.

Of course, the new system would require personnel changes across the university.   Since each department at the university may be affected by the others throughout the process, clear communication between stakeholders is essential. As shown in Figure 2, whoever makes executive decisions, usually, the President, Provost, or Vice-President for Enrollment Management would have to initiate a restructuring or process re-engineering or develop the new system. Then the appropriate software would need to be developed or procured followed by extensive training. The software would be a large initial outlay of funds. But the cost may be recouped by the resulting increase in the graduation rates since many schools are receiving performance-based funding.

Figure 2. AI System Development Process

As discussed earlier, some systems and online apps (solutions) have been proposed and implemented at various institutions very efficiently and effectively. But, can we develop an app that will able to engage and link a community of learners—integrating students' life, work, and study?

App-Design: Findings and Recommendations

Since 2015, the first author and several undergraduate students have been involved in the development of mobile-learning apps to stimulate student engagement with peers, faculty, mentors, advisors as well as streamlining the student learning process (Rodriguez et al. 2015).  In 2017-2018 initiative, the basic design app requirements included: (1) focus on students' engagement via mobile technology; (2) design simplified User-Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX); (3) provide connective functionality; (4) automated reminders and notifications; (5) quick load times; and (6) user-friendly team-collaboration (Table 2).

When designing the initial experimental mobile app (Figure 1), the researchers decided to implement it on various operating systems (i.e., iOS, Android) as well as provide web access. The experimental apps were available to the project's participants. For ethical/privacy/security considerations, before downloading the app, the participants were prompted with a consent form. The participants could access information; such as assignments' due dates, upcoming tasks, and graded assignments. In future versions, students will also have to provide their consent (i.e., opt-in) to have their contact information uploaded into a database on a computer server. This approach would allow only privately and securely encrypted transactions among students and their faculty/mentors. Further, there will be no "surprise" (or unqualified) data and information extracted aside from what the students would permit the researchers to aggregate.  

Table 2: System Requirements

Data

Functionality

Dev

UI/UX

Displays data pulled from preexisting App, LMS

Easily Accessible, downloadable, quick sign uptime

Quick Load Times/ Page Speed

Sleek and simple design

Needs to retrieve basic information from all students.

Easily to manage notifications or messages

Need to establish an API call with LMS to pull in needed data

Design with the concept of sustainability and reliability

Source: White 2018

Next, the developers would need to utilize and integrate the app with the new version of the Learning Management System (LMS) at the sponsoring institution. Usually, LMS stores all student data; such as, assignments, due dates, upcoming assignments, and hosts an email communication system as well as contains contact information of students and instructors. Ubiquitous-learning apps should be easily navigable and downloadable. The app should have a quick process download time, as well as a quick response time when storing new student information. When the student has notifications or messages, the app should provide different user variations of how to be notified: alarm, text message, email notification, home screen notification, or simple vibration tone. In order to make the data needed easily accessible, the developers would need to set up an Application Program Interface (API) call to pull the data from the LMS. This call would update on a daily basis at midnight EST. This function would continuously update the app with new assignments, instructor communications and information (should it change, and new introductions to discussions.) As learned in the initial development effort, this function would put less stress on the system in times of extreme updates such as the beginning of add/drop week, course registration dates, etc. The development team would need to ensure that the page loading time, page speed time, and integration time is as low as possible to indicate a fast processing system. Further, as in the first version, developers would need to conduct front end-user testing, as well as back-end user-testing. In addition, they would also need to create prototypes and wireframes of the internal and external systems and test different versions using a group of randomly selected students/participants. These designs should focus on the concepts of simplicity, reliability, and sustainability. Developers would need to come up with different color themes, so students have the individuality to truly make the system their "own" app. In addition, students should be able to customize layout functions with drag and drop methods and delete sections should they not find them relevant (July Rapid 2016; Savvy Apps 2018).

Below are some recommended prototypes that would meet the above design recommendations.

Prototype: Software App for Student Time Management

For rapid development, the system starts with a time-management function and progressively increase functionality to address other issues. For instance, later on, developers could utilize advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and adaptive learning software. The application could use AI that learns how long it takes students to complete certain assignments and tasks and use that information to better choose how to schedule the student's day. The LMS system can be synced with the application. So, assignments and other important calendar items can be imported into the calendar of the application. Cross-communication takes the workload off the student and places it entirely on the system.

The application for student time-management should have a sleek, simple design. It should be intuitive for students to understand exactly how it works. There should be functions for the students to see tasks in a calendar form, tasks in a list form, completed tasks, and a connection to the LMS. In addition, students should be able to sort by day, week, and month for different views of tasks to be completed. A recommended prototype design for the application is shown in Figure 3. But there are some commercially available calendars that could be investigated (Kazmucha 2014).

Figure 3: Prototype Design of Application for Student Time Management

Source: Lystad 2018

An application, such as time management, can help students stay organized as well as teach them time-management skills. In addition to features for time management, the application may also connect students with mentors, tutors, and advisors, i.e., in a community of online learners. The app can link students’ right to a page that allows them to schedule an appointment with their advisor or tutor.

For students with financial needs, the application may link straight to the portal financial aid. The financial aid portal can contain the information explained previously in the financial aid section or offer micro-financing options, as discussed earlier. It is essential to make it easy for students to access financial aid if the university wants students to take advantage of it.

Of course, the answer to the persistence problem is not just one single solution. In order to meet its goals in solving the persistence problem, the university should consider which of the other non-technical solutions are feasible and economically viable to implement. Table 3 shows the pros and cons of each sample solution.

Firstly, adding more financial aid for students might be an issue for universities when its already experiencing funding challenges. Even further, financial aid may not necessarily encourage students to try to succeed and graduate in four years. A better approach for financial aid is to encourage and reward students who are academically successful by staying on track and on their selected curriculum pathway. Students that earn high grades should be eligible for scholarships and grants.

Table 3: App Solution: Pros/Cons

Possible Solutions

Pros

Cons

Online, Mobile Mentoring/Tutoring

Free: Build a sense of community or community of online learners that help each other.

Cost: Need to have access to a smartphone, cellular mobile device or computer connected to the Internet, if unable to use university labs.

Financial Aid

Helps students pay

Rewards academic success

Cost to the institution

Does not help all at-risk students

Application

Helps students manage time

Builds career skills

Used by all students

Cost to the university, although it might be developed as a collaborative class project.

Source: Lystad 2018

Aside from tutoring, the time-management application could be a lifesaver for students that have trouble managing themselves. There may be additional costs for institutions to implement a new app, but these costs may be mitigated by assigning development efforts to work-study Computer Science and Computer Information Systems (CIS) students as a class project. A developmental effort, such as this app, falls within the scope of CS/CIS students and could be effectively and efficiently accomplished---not counting the educational experience if coordinated with several software development companies. After implementation, the costs to the university would be minimal, and the benefits are anticipated to be exponential. Students will have fewer obstacles when it comes to completing schoolwork as well as budgeting time for extracurricular activities to benefit retention. Figure 4 shows the system development process for the app.

Figure 4. Life Cycle: Lynch 2018

Ethical, Privacy, and Security Issues with the App

Although the above app solution seems adequate, some critical issues may arise from the system. The first major one is dealing with privacy, security, and ethics. "Computer technologies present ethical problems that cannot, as an objective matter, be adequately resolved by recourse to existing ethical theories" (Himma 2007). With the new system recommendations, the students' privacy might be an issue of concern, particularly, if the advisor or faculty would be able to see the last time they logged in and s/he tries to micromanage the students' life, work, and study. There would have to be a balance between trying to help students and trying to micromanage students if they missed an assignment, which might cause concern among the more independently minded students. It could lead to cases against the school if students feel like they have no privacy when it comes to their school work. Therefore, the institution should create panel discussions with both students and professors to see how they feel about the system and try to work to ease potential tensions---so students do not feel their privacy invaded. Fortunately, apps and systems may be designed to be opt-in or opt-out. And, they can also be designed to be proactive (perhaps, intrusive) or simply lay out passively and let the user takes control of its functionality.

An Integrated Student-Success App

Data is everywhere. Universities collect a great amount of data about students that may be used (within the privacy/security/ethical constraints) to help address students' persistence in college. And, an integrated student-success can be designed to meet the desired goals.

Figures 5 and 6 below provide an example of how an application could "proactively" or "passively" help guide students to seek help if they come across a difficult situation and they need online assistance.  

Figure 5: Student Success Interface         

Figure 6: Student Success – Advisor Interface. 

This mobile student success (Figures 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) will allow students to set appointments and communicate with a support team that may be composed of career advisors, psychologists, and faculty members—in an integrated fashion. In addition, students would be able to access information (tailored specifically for them) to support their curriculum pathway and help them set goals to achieve the desired outcome (i.e., hopefully, timely graduation). The support team would be armed with a robust database that would present them with all the necessary information to guide students to graduate on time and keep them motivated.

Figures 7 and 8 below illustrate some cross-functional capabilities to help the support team. Information such as the student's GPA, the financial aid required until graduation, and the course sequence needed to graduate are all listed together under one platform. This compiled information can help students and the support team take the necessary steps to successfully address any issue they might need to solve and plan an effective success path to graduation.

Figure 7: Student Success - Profile

Source: Souza 2018

The support team would be able to customize the information that they want to analyze. In other words, the support team would be able to write queries to import data from the database to help students understand better the situation and the background information of each student. It's possible that the advisors' roles would be to proactively check if the students are registering and taking the courses required to graduate on time. However, they could also inquire about grades performance, or if they needed financial aid, or if students are happy with their selected major.

In addition, advisors or mentors could possibly ask about the student's well-being---trying to assess stress-levels indirectly or if they are feeling motivated to continue taking classes. Despite the privacy/security issues that may surely arise, these types of questions are important and must be asked. Reason: Maybe some students might feel ashamed to ask for help. In some cultures, complaining about a problem to others might make the people be viewed as complainers or negative people. If advisors, like social workers, would be allowed to ask why students' grades were so low, or if they had noticed disappointment with the class and stress levels, maybe they could better guide students to seek help and perhaps they wouldn't have dropped college.

Although there is lots of help available to college students, the immediate connection might not be readily available at critical times. So, a mobile app may be a more active, interactive and proactive approach to identifying needs and wants. Moreover, if a student needs to take a break from college, they usually have to re-apply to be placed in the college system again. Are advisors checking why a student didn't take any classes for two semesters, and more importantly, asking why students dropped out of college? So, some feedback mechanism needs to be implemented.

The above illustrates the importance of a system that would offer cross-functional capabilities---including the participation of advisors, mentors, and faculty working together to ensure that each student that needs help in getting the attention required in a timely fashion. Theoretically, if implemented well, every function would be just by the click of a button and students can reach out for assistance.

Figure 8 - Student Success Metrics

Figure 9: Student Success – Resources Source: Souza 2018

Figure 9 above, illustrates some of the resources that could be available to students via this application. These resources page could include capabilities; such as the functionality to apply to financial aid, or to access micro-financing resources; the functionality to set appointments with support team members; and the capability to seek more information to improve their overall college performance. In addition, students that work and study could ask for help by reaching out to members of the support team through the application that could provide support via chat, email, or live sessions.

Tested Apps in a Sponsored, Multi-year, Certification-Training Project

Some of the app-designs and all student-service recommendations were tested during a sponsored, multiyear pre-professional career certification project. Table 4 provides the results of this training project conducted at Florida Gulf Coast University with the sponsorship of the US Department of Defense's MyCAA (Military Career Advancement Accounts) scholarship/financial/grant assistance program in partnership with industry and the Institute for Technological Innovation.

The Critical Success Factor (CRF) for the project was the completion rate* (Table 4) attained by the participating military-spouses in the online certification-training offered during the duration of the project at FGCU.

Succinctly, the project's high completion rate (87.6%) was due to the consistent high-level of online support provided (via Internet, chats, e-mail, VoIP, video, and other telecommunication tools) to all participants (i.e., military spouses) in this project/program.

Table 4 – Participants: Completion Rate

Total Participants in the Training

3343

Successfully Completed Program

2930

Completion Rate

87.6%

Attempted Certification Exam

598

Passed Certification Exam

424

Certification Pass Rate

70.9%

 ….

Real-Time and Asynchronous Online Support Services 

Consistent and effective online support was provided to the 3,343 military spouses (Table 4) participating in the MyCAA asynchronous online training program (i.e., on-demand videos and just-in-time assessments) offered during the duration of the MyCAA multiyear project at FGCU. The participants persisted and successfully completed their training because someone cared (an advisor, an instructor) about their success and was willing to give them one more call and one more opportunity.

Although the training completion rate was high (87.6%), the institute was unable to require participants to take the pre-professional certification exam (provided by the third-party national certification agencies) once they successfully completed their training. Therefore, the result was that few military-spouses (approximately 20%) took their pre-professional certification exam.  Even though 3,343 military-spouses took and passed the required quizzes and qualification exams to obtain the Certificate of Completion at the institution. Of those participants that voluntarily took their official pre-professional certification exam, about 71% passed their exam and became certified.  At this point, there is still no official requirement to take the pre-professional certification exam offered by agencies. In addition, due to privacy issues, it's not possible to collect information about employment, after completing the training and exams. Therefore, employment data on MyCAA participants is no available to the investigators (i.e., data cannot be obtained from the funding agency, due to confidentiality issues.)

Participants were strongly encouraged to take advantage of the variety of services offered by the MyCAA Project Support Team (MPST). As detailed below, MPST delivered impactful, professional, and results-driven support services, beyond what is normally provided by other institutions (i.e., online 24-7 vs. the traditional campus 40- to 60- hours per week).

Below are the online student/participant services that were available to each of the 3,343 participants.  Basically, the partners, in coordination with the Project Director, created a series of timed/scheduled outreach points that were designed to notify participants of their progress----keeping them engaged all the time.  If a participant felt out of pace (from where they should have been on the training), the participant would at the very least receive a phone call and an e-mail. And, for those with severe academic deficiencies, they would receive an advisor consultation where a new course schedule was designed and agreed upon based on the needs of the participant.

Table 5 – Recommended Strategies to Support Online Students/Participants

Proactive Strategies:

• New Participant Online Orientation – Private one-on-one phone orientation required for all participants

• Private Student Consultations – Based on need or request, all students had the ability to self-schedule an appointment for a consultation with an advisor, if support or guidance was needed.

• All participant progress was monitored and reported to Participant Services on a DAILY basis.

• Scheduled Outreach – Timed outreach – Participants were contacted at scheduled intervals throughout training regarding their program progress/status.

• Remedial Support – Participants who were identified as "deficient" in progress were provided a phone consultation with an advisor. A revised schedule or custom learning plan was developed based on participant needs.

• In-Activity Monitoring – If no activity for an extended period, an "outreach" by phone/email occurred.

Reactive Strategies:

• On-Demand Toll-Free Phone Support

• On-Demand Email Support

• Certification Exam Registration and Scheduling Assistance

• Registration and delivery of program-specific certification Assessment module

Subject Matter Support Strategies:

• On-Demand Chat with a Live Subject Matter Experts who hold one or more industry degrees and certifications

• One-on-One Tutoring – Based on need, or by participant request

• Assistance navigating the many resources provided to supplement the video instruction

Exam Preparation Support Strategies:

• Detailed exam preparation plan upon completion of their program.

• All participants received Exam Preparation Manuals for all eligible exams.

• Private one-on-one phone consultations (Exam Preparation Session) with a Subject Matter (i.e., expert reviews key objectives, study/exam tips, and to provide additional resources to best prepare students for certification success.)

• A dedicated Exam Registration Specialist helped each student with the pre-registration process, identifying a testing location, and served as a guide during each student's path to exam day.

Technical Support Strategies:  

• Dedicated Tech Support to assist with video troubleshooting, software installation, browser issues, etc.

• Creation/Delivery of custom troubleshooting & FAQ video modules

• Available by phone, email, and chat with remote screen-share support capability

Conclusion and Future Research

As demonstrated by the above career project, ubiquitous mobile learning may positively transform course delivery and completion. But, before deciding to implement mobile courses and programs, institutions would benefit from analyzing mobile learning's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; particularly, its effects on retention and persistence.

As discussed, mobile learning is a relatively new ubiquitous learning approach, so the advantages and disadvantages (or benefits and perils) should be researched further before deciding to utilize this form of learning delivery method. Many faculty and students are aware of the convenience and flexibility of using mobile electronic devices and its popularity is growing. However, the potential pitfalls and challenges are often ignored. Demanding mobile, online courses create both an opportunity and a challenge for remote learners. And it provides tremendous scheduling flexibility for study-work students. But, if the university doesn't have a robust student support infrastructure, mobile online students may be inclined to drop the course without seeking campus support.

As reviewed in this paper, online students are taking longer to complete their degrees and, unfortunately, many never graduate. This research examined the problems students are facing. Two characteristics were analyzed, namely, student characteristics, and institutional characteristics. Alternative app-design solutions were presented to increase the student retention rate and help students find a balance between work and study. One of the solutions consisted of developing robust and cross-functional mobile-learning application prototypes to address the key issues and dimensions of well-being impacting students' persistence in college. The mobile-friendly app prototypes presented have user-friendly pull-down menus to access an interactive assignment calendar--including functionality to set appointments and communicate with advisors, faculty, mentors, and support staff.  In addition, the app prototypes incorporated ways to (1) balance work and social life; (2) display grades and warnings; (3) access micro-financing resources for paying for textbooks and tuition; (4) keep track of pending and completed assignments; and (5) find study groups and mentors, among other functions. Privacy, security, and ethical dilemmas, as well as challenges in funding these free apps, were briefly addressed, in the context of mobile learning.

Despite the challenges, the researchers have concluded that software applications could help improve persistence and retention, mainly based on the high-completion rates attained during the above research-training project duration. Nevertheless, the mobile apps must absolutely be backed by a consistent online student-support system at the palm of the students' hands—including access to online mentors to assist students just-in-time.

Further, the mobile app's institutional policies should be researched and analyzed further. For instance, should the tracking apps be required on students' devices? What are the ethical and legal implications? Should apps be offered independently or integrated within the university LMS environment? In this case, the apps will have to sync with university LMS data, so the students' courses and current information (i.e., grades, due dates, etc.) would be automatically uploaded and updated–including when their assignments are due. Actually, this feature is only one of the few that would require drawing data from the LMS as the rest of the features are more extensive. In any case, the first feature that the app should offer is a Calendar/Scheduler. This function would indicate when assignments are due. A student should also be able to edit it and add their weekly personal work-study activities to the calendar, so their assignments, class schedules, meetings, and other social activities can be found in one handy place. The calendar should have a setting where a student can look at tasks for that day or it could break it down more as it shows hour by hour activities. With the calendar comes the notification functionality. So, if a student opts-in, notifications would be sent to him/her at least one day prior to the due date. From the ethical perspective, the user should have to opt-in (rather than have to opt-out) for notifications. [First Author's Note: Many LMS have a function that allows instructors to send reminders (i.e., when an assignment is due) but it's not automated and not all faculty use it. The first author has used this function very effectively to reduce non-submittals and maximize student timely submittals as well as improve persistence.]

Continuing additional recommendations, when the user ops-in, the app should show the assignments due that day. In addition, the app should incorporate some social features. According to Smith and Bland (2019), amenities can be useful in retention efforts. Therefore, a social-tab functionality would allow clubs to post their meetings when events are happening on campus, or even if someone is looking to watch, say, a sports game with people rooting for the same team. This recommended feature is meant to get the students involved on-campus and to meet friends who have similar interests. This feature could potentially keep a student active and happily engaged which might prevent them from dropping out. Another feature could be a study group function. This could be a virtual facility where someone can post about looking to meet-up with people who are taking the same course, so they can help each other understand the materials.

During app testing, the first researcher learned that students need peer support and if they are able to easily find compatible people to study with, they might be able to reinforce what was learned in the lessons and do better in the course. Another recommended feature could be for obtaining financial aid. In this function, advisors (or those maintaining the app) could post relevant scholarship opportunities or links to apply for scholarships, so students can go to the app tab instead of having to research the university website. This would save students both time and effort. And, in this way, students can focus more on their studies, rather than worry all the time about how to finance their education. The next recommendation is a way to connect to the instructor in real-time or near real-time. This could potentially assist in mediating the effects of the relationships between faculty and students (Lenz 2014). Of course, additional research is needed to assess the effects of this connect-function on both faculty and students. Further functionality: If a student missed an assignment, a query-notification should pop up on the mobile screen. In this way, the professor would be able to know the exact reason why the student missed the deadline. Students should be able to choose from pre-written answers, such as struggling with the concept, having financial problems, mental health problems, work, other, or even rather not say—which the student will answer, and that will be sent to the professor or advisor. The instructor or mentor would be able to know what is happening, so they can reach out to students/participants and try to help them before they consider dropping out. Further, faculty should be able to see when was the last time the student logged in. [Some LMS systems already have that capability.] In this way, faculty would know that if the student has not logged in a while, s/he can try to reach out to students in class or via email. The professor should also get automated notifications if a student missed an assignment, so they can reach out to the student.

In closing, certainly, there is no app or solution that can single-handily improve student persistence and retention. It is neither the fault of the students, nor the faculty, nor administrators or advisors, but rather a culmination of years of unintended academic chaos, as universities and colleges grew without adequate student-support infrastructure and resources. But, if students were to put a higher value on engaging in class; and if universities became more willing to accommodate students' busy schedules by offering more 24-7 mobile online-support (as well as engaging students as a mobile, ubiquitous learning community), student retention and student involvement would probably increase. Furthermore, offering more student-support, tutoring and better supplementary instruction would ensure that students pass courses the first time, saving them time and money. Offering more scholarships and designing engaging apps and systems to help students stay on track with coursework may improve retention and graduation rates as well. Of course, future data will certainly tell if the above approaches are improving outcomes, as universities implement and measure tactics, such as, acceleration (Herrera et al. 2012), adaptive learning (Walkington 2013), pre-freshman prep (Wischusen et al. 2011), mentoring (Lenz 2014), predictive analytics, smart advising, wireless fingerprinting (Talaviya et al. 2013), automated degree-planning, mass personalization, structured guided curriculum pathways, in-class tutors, among many other initiatives (McMurtrie 2018). But, even without all these approaches and technologies, the faculty has a pivotal role to play (Stevenson et al. 2007). And as more faculty conduct timely low-tech interventions (i.e., by simply asking "What happened?" "Why haven't you completed the assignments?"). Succinctly, as more online mentors and instructors provide online-student-support as well as alternative, engaging, relevant assignments and projects, universities may expect improvements in students' persistence, as revealed by the aforementioned multiyear government-sponsored project.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Walter Rodriguez: Professor of Information Systems and Director, Institute for Technological Innovation, ISOM, Lutgert College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, USA

Taylor Bass: Undergraduate Student, Lutgert College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, USA

David Souza: Undergraduate Student, Lutgert College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, USA

Jessica Lynch: Undergraduate Student, Lutgert College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, USA

Michael Lystad: Undergraduate Student, Lutgert College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, USA

Ashley White: Undergraduate Student, Lutgert College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, Florida, USA

How to Build a Job-Resilient Career While Pursuing Your Passion

By Walter Rodriguez, M.Arch., Ph.D., C.G.C., P.E.

Why did I become interested in career development? As you will quickly find out, I have failed many (many, many, many) times along my career path—before eventually fulfilling my passion for writing, teaching, designing & building things (i.e., minimalistic homes*, engaging courses, research papers, apps UI/UX, etc.)

So I thought what if there is a better, faster path to reach our career goals? There is. And I hope this blog will help you learn from the collective wisdom of career professionals. And also wish these notes will assist you to chart a better career path—faster.

*Sustainable, Minimalistic home-office in Naples. Florida

Yes, we believe you can map out a better career (Kalish, A. 2020) path by learning from experience and research in the career development field (Simmons U. 2020). And along the way, you can also learn by modeling productive behaviors while avoiding unproductive habits (Covey, S.R. 1994).

Further, you don’t have to limit yourself to one particular work activity since you already have multiple interests, abilities, and strengths. It’s a matter of discovery.

“The phrase all roads lead to Rome means that there are various ways to reach a conclusion, many ways to achieve a goal, and many routes to arrive at a decision. The idea is that there are many methods to accomplish something, all leading to the same result.” (Grammarist 2020)

Like the phrase “all roads lead to Rome” there are indeed many ways to succeed in your desired career path. But I believe there is a way to get there a bit faster, as I indicated earlier.

Besides you “can expect to change jobs and professions multiple times” and your “career path will no longer follow a simple ‘learn-to-work’’ trajectory, as Heather E. McGowan, co-author of ‘The Adaptation Advantage,’ likes to say, but rather a path of ‘work-learn-work-learn-work-learn.” (Friedman, T.L. 2020).

First, let’s quickly discuss the modeling of very (very, very, very) successful individuals like Steve Jobs.

As you probably know, Apple’s Founder Steve Jobs (2011-11-04) was able to successfully pursue his passion for the arts, humanities, calligraphy (Chokshi., N. 2016), minimalism, and aesthetics by applying some of its design principles (Reid, M. 2019) to user-interface/user-experience (UI/UX), proportionally spaced fonts, typography, software application development, and computer hardware innovation (Isaacson, W. 2011, Zell J. 2020.) What was Jobs’ mindset? He wanted to think differently or out-of-the-box, as shown in the quote below.

“... technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.””

— Steve Jobs, Founder and Former CEO, Apple

I am fairly sure that if you ask a friend, teacher, advisor, or mentor: "What type of career should I pursue?" they might respond, "follow your passion," or "find what makes you happy," or "follow your calling." And they may even recommend asking yourself: "Is it even possible to make a living from the thing that I am most passionate about?" (O'Brian, S., 2019).

In my career experience, we should instead ask ourselves: "What are my strengths** as a verb?" Or, you may try to identify the kinds of things you are good at or what you may become good at with reasonable effort? For instance, you might be very good at creating, designing, memorizing, observing, solving, making, writing, reading, quantifying, cooking, gaming, playing, drawing, teaching, socializing, meditating, or caring, managing, coordinating, policing, leading, joking, engaging, farming, planting, etc. Answering “What are my strengths** as a verb” will help us become aware of our strengths without having to name a specific career or profession (i.e., architect, engineer, designer, writer, teacher, contractor, nurse, physician, social worker, manager, technologist, programmer, accountant, carpenter, chef, etc. )

[**Note: “Strengths’ Awareness” is part of the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis technique (Schooley, S. 2019), as we will see later, in our free “AI/Managerial Strategy” course. To log in, send a request to walter@coursewell.com]

Then, based on identifying your strengths as a verb, you may ask: Can I develop a passion for an in-demand career (or a unique entrepreneurial opportunity) to maximize my opportunities for success?

If you don't yet have the skillsets or, better yet, the mindset for a specific field you want to pursue, you may ask: Do I have the perseverance and motivation to learn and eventually master an in-demand field (or an entrepreneurial niche opportunity)? Ultimately, that might be the best question to ask! Do you agree? If not, please post a rebuttal in the comment section of this blog.

As a Forbes author indicated:

“Instead of looking towards the things you are passionate about, think instead about the things you are good at. What skills do you have? What kind of work do you enjoy doing? What type of job do you think you’d be good at? What motivates you? Think about the people you admire professionally, whether you know them personally or not. Then ask yourself what it is about them that you admire and is that something that you could emulate?

If you focus on your strengths and what you know you can do well, rather than what you are passionate about, you’ll end up with a much more realistic and achievable goal or plan for success.”

— Forbes, accessed January 31, 2019.

Of course, we know that Apple’s founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, successfully pursued his passion for the arts, design, and later on: technological innovation. Do you think he is the exception or the norm? To participate, please post your answer on this forum.

Can you research how some well-known individuals (like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates) attained success in their business careers? Please post your findings in the blog comments.

…

Here is another anecdote from my personal experience: I have been asking the above career questions to my students for many years. I don’t know why—perhaps, I was still trying to find my own path before I learned it’s a process.

In my career development research, I found a “methodology” that you may use to build a job-resilient career while pursuing your passion—regardless of your background, credentials, or work experience. Of course, I will continue proving some of my own experience. The advantage of listening to my story is that I was an average student from high-school until I graduated with my first bachelor’s degree. And I found that it took a unique opportunity, a bit of curiosity, and lots of persistence to succeed in my desired career.

But as I admitted earlier: I failed many times before eventually fulfilling my passion for writing, teaching, designing & building things (i.e., homes, webpages, applications, mousetraps***). [If you are curious about the better mousetrap*** thing, you can Google Scholar "Rodriguez, W. The Modeling of Design Ideas” (1992).]

Humbly, I am afraid to say: “I believe I have accomplished most of my initial career goals, but there are more mountains to climb.” And again, I hope that by reading this blog, you will learn from my career experience, failures, and successes. 

… 

As a young child, I had an inkling for drawing houses. I would walk to a residential construction site in my neighborhood and visualize what the house would look like when completed. So I thought I had a natural aptitude for drawing and even designing homes. 

I decided that I would be an architect, and an engineer, and a home builder in my teen years—yes, all of them! But I had no idea how to get started in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction field. One of my uncles was a civil engineer that was designing houses (rather than designing building structures or roads) since there were no architects or residential designers in my hometown.

Interestingly, he drew the residential plans for the first house I remember living in for many of my preteen years. When I was ready to go to college, I went to him to ask for advice, but he had gone to serve in the USA military, and later on, I sadly found out that he had died as a consequence of a head injury. 

I felt sad for many months, not knowing how to react or what to do. I had lost both my uncle and my potential mentor. I should have kept looking for an advisor or mentor but unfortunately, I didn’t.

Eventually, I was encouraged by my parents and friends to move on. And I decided to honor my uncle’s memory and continue pursuing my desired career with more determination than ever! Unfortunately, there were no architecture programs on the tropical USA island where I was growing up. So, I decided to become a civil engineer since there was an engineering school about 20 miles from my home. I registered in the program and moved to the campus facilities. But my first semester was an academic disaster. Simply put, I didn't possess the STEM or mathematical background needed to succeed in a highly technical field.  That year I joined the military (the Air National Guard — training during weekends) since it allowed me a small stipend to continue my engineering studies.

The next year, after my first-year academic failure, I decided to stay home and travel to the courses I had not had to drop. I considered changing fields, but I would lose my financial assistance and disappoint my parents, who had to make some financial sacrifices to pay tuition and board.

…..

In this “Build a Job-Resilient Career” blog series, I will be drawing on a wealth of data, information, knowledge, business intelligence, and the wisdom of successful working professionals. As we move forward, I will refer to peer-reviewed research and articles on the “career development” subject.

As earlier, I will be sharing a bit of my personal journey on the path of career self-discovery and eventual mastery. Like many job-seekers, admittedly, my career starting knowing virtually nothing about what “building a successful career” would entail—particularly for someone from very humble origins in a poverty-stricken US territory—in terms of goal-setting, self-assessment, SWOT analysis, responsibility, motivation, education, training, branding, quality-standards, connections, networking, resumes, internships, apprenticeships, and mentors.

Yes, like in business, I think that there is critically important to position yourself for building a job-resilient career while pursuing your passion. At this point, I recommend joining my free “AI Managerial Strategy/Career Strategy” course at Coursewell.com to get started on your journey. Of course, please read on and continue seeking advice from career professionals or join one of the many online in-demand programs in the country.

“Steve Jobs did it. So can you, and here is how!”

— Walter Rodriguez, Ph.D., P.E., CLO, Adaptiva Corp

…

Like present times, I grew up in a couple of uncertain and challenging decades. And, honestly, it was a bit chaotic. But, fortunately, a caring environment. My loving parents had no formal education beyond basic public-schooling (what was called at the time “normal” or “basic” schooling—something resembling a bit less than a current high-school diploma.) To wit, my father had to take a “high-school” equivalency exam to qualify as a public servant (i.e., police detective). He had to take several times to pass. But he was motivated and resilient. Not knowing better, each time he took the exam, he would try to memorize the questions that he had wrong until he eventually passed the exam. [Later on, he became a successful insurance salesman.] At the time, my mother had self-study to take and pass the “normal teaching” certificate to work in elementary rural schools.

Like perhaps many of you, I didn’t have an advisor or mentor to guide me throughout my “career development process.” Therefore, I ended up making lots of wrong decisions and career mistakes along the way. But intuitively, I knew that I was on the wrong path and needed to take action.

After a one-year dead-end, a low-paying job as a civil servant (building permits official), I discovered that seeking my career objective at the time (i.e., architectural design) didn’t necessarily lead to a life of deprivation and sacrifices for my family and me.

I decided that I could do better for my family and me by actually following my passion. I applied the principles of observation and curiosity. Simply put, I took the liberty of asking seemingly-wealthy individuals visiting the local building-permits’ office. “What do you do?” Eventually, I discovered a pattern: They were not following the “Path of the Calf.” (Sam Walter Foss, 1895). Like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they didn’t follow many of the traditional career paths at the time (i.e., engineer, lawyer, teacher) but rather developed their own way!

“One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er hill and glade
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migration of that calf,
And through this winding woody-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And travelled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And thus, before we were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.”

— The Calf Path – Sam Walter Foss – 1895

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

— Steve Jobs

Although at the time I didn’t have my desired academic degree or architectural design credentials, I decided nevertheless to pursue a job in a newly developed Architecture & Planning firm by starting as a “professional delivery person” (now I might have been called an Amazon or UPS partner or Uber driver) between government permit approval offices, contractors and subcontractors. I ask one of the well-to-do folks who was bringing construction plans for reviewal and approval by the agency: Can I help link you link their A/E/C office’s clerical tasks (i.e., delivering plans for review). He invited me to lunch. And when I see him hesitate a bit I also offered to pre-review their construction plans and permits for free. And that he was going to be my Frank Louis Wright. That was the key to getting started in architecture and later complete my second, third, and fourth academic degrees and career certifications.

You got it: My career has been an on-the-job training while I was pursuing my credentials and certifications. And, as a consequence, that is the learning model we have developed at Coursewell.com: work-based courses.

…

Lesson: Following your passion is doable if you can find the right role models and seek practical advice from people that have gone through the career path you envision. And, of course, you must be persistent, observant, and curious!

…

Recap: I grew up in a fishing town on a USA Caribbean island, where none of the universities offered the academic program I wanted to pursue: architecture. So, I choose to study civil engineering rather than architecture—which didn’t make me very happy earl on. At the time, without resources, I couldn’t afford to move to the continental USA to pursue my dream career.

…

Admittedly, for the last few decades, I have been studying self-help books --- as a way to improve both myself and my teaching and entrepreneurship career. In reading those books, I have learned "critical success factors (CSF) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI)" as well as the career skills necessary to succeed in both life and business. 

From teaching and interacting with students at a 2-year public community college early in my teaching career; to teaching and research at Ivy graduate schools for several decades, I have learned seven (7) key career skills we need to succeed in the information age. Better yet, I also learned how to develop and teach those critical skills to my students. Below are the 7 key career skill that is essential to our success:

1. Confidence - According to Dr. Ivan Joseph, confidence (or rather, self-confidence) is "the ability to believe in yourself to accomplish any task, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulties, no matter the adversity." Fortunately, self-confidence is a "learn-able" skill. You may develop confidence through consistent participation in sports or hobbies or anything you can become good at or passionate about to persist despite challenges. Reason: Building confidence takes "repetition, repetition, repetition." For instance, if you like to learn how to shoot a 3-pointer, you practice consistently using the 3-point technique. [This is related to what Malcolm Gladwell calls the "10,000-hour" rule --- which we will discuss in Skill # 7 below).]

2. Collaboration is the ability to "work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit." Anya Kamenetz's "How to Raise a Brilliant Child, According to Science" states that "collaboration is everything from getting along with others to controlling your impulses so you can get along and not kick someone else off the swing." Yes, she refers to kids, but haven't you observed and became frustrated by adults or coworkers or friends behaving similarly? I have experienced this at all levels during my long career (but I better stop there before I get in trouble.) 

3. Communication includes exchanging data, information, knowledge, and wisdom in both verbal and visual form. In the information age, learning how to use productivity office software (spreadsheet and presentation tools) is almost as relevant as speaking, writing, reading, and, more importantly, listening. In fact, listening is an essential ability to build long-lasting relationships, as further discussed in Skill # 6 below.

4. Systems Thinking (and critical thinking) involves using framework and models. This requires a full blog article. But, the video below is a great start! 

5. Creative Innovation is essential to our career growth and development. It is not "the left-brain/right-brain binary that we've come to believe."Fortunately, creative innovation can be learned since it's essentially a process. It's about being willing to explore tens or hundreds or thousands of ideas that may ultimately fail. It involves being willing to seek solutions after failing and failing until you find a working idea.

6. Reading people's emotions is key to enduring relationships and successful negotiations, according to Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro ["Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate"]. For instance, "expressing appreciation," that is, finding and showing value in what others say, "think, feel, or do," is a powerful tool. If you meet a seemingly stressed-out colleague, ask: What do you think your colleague is thinking? Is it better to leave him alone or ask him/her if everything is okay? or try to identify what worries him or her, based on what you know about this person and his/her family? How do you think they feel, and will it be better to wait and come back later?

7. Specialty Content Knowledge - The last (but essential) career skill is the specialty content knowledge; that is, being an expert in your selected career. According to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes "10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field." Surprisingly, "natural talent" is not as important--and that's good news for the rest of us—content knowledge building on the other six skills. Initially, when you start learning a difficult or tedious subject, you/we may feel inclined to abandon. But, ask yourself: How come many other folks in this field really like it. The answer is that they persisted until they became comfortable with the subject and finally love it. A career is like marriage or long-term friendships; you have to be patient and work at it every day, persistently.

…

You can stay competitive by gaining a new in-demand skill every month. A recent article in the New York Times titled "Job Training Works. So Why Not Do More?" applauds the success of in-demand career certification training programs, such as Information Technology certification in computers and networking (i.e., CompTIA A+ and Network+), among several others.

The article focuses on the merits of a "Women in Technology" job-training program sponsored by a non-profit organization in New York. The success of job-training programs has been further replicated and validated by WorkAdvance --where a variety of organizations created experimental in-demand training programs spanning from IT to healthcare.  This real-life "experiment" demonstrated that job-training participants were able to increase earnings. Further, many participants felt very hopeful about their career path and future earning potential.

So, Job Training Works. But, as the article asks: Why not do more?

Job or career training has also been used very effectively to retain employees in their current jobs or promote employees. Employees value these types of on-the-job-training as much as their salary & benefits. And employers value the industry-based certification training credentials that participants obtain. So, everyone wins.

But, now, can career training programs also help retain and persistently engage students? In my experience leading and offering in-demand career training, sponsored by the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and private foundations, I have witnessed how these types of job-related, practical training can improve student retention---even when these extracurricular programs are not generally being regarded as a genuine academic pursuit for faculty.

…
Although admittedly, I have accomplished most of my initial career goals, I still have a long way to go. And I believe that’s part of the fun of the career-process! For instance, I never became a University President as I had planned while on my third and fourth academic degrees. Nevertheless, that unfulfilled accomplishment didn’t turn out bad. [If you are curious and have a few seconds, I am going to tell really quickly: After being an endowed chair and director of a research institute for a couple of decades, I found that being in that position is one of those nightmarish jobs—unless you have a passion for wasting time in 8-to-5 meetings and hearing complains.

Seriously now. I hope that by reading this blog, you will learn from my career failures and successes. And that you will be able to accomplish your goals faster than me. By the way, that should not be such a great challenge.

…

On Motivation: During the last twenty years, I have been incorporating practical work-based exercises in my online managerial and technical courses at Coursewell.com (from CompTIA A+ and Excel training to e-commerce and webpage development exercises) with great success. Essentially, close to 100% of the participants and students have passed our courses with at least a C+ average, and the general class average has been around B+.

I believe it's time to try this work-based approach with the general student population, particularly with at-risk students (or courses where there is a high dropout rate.) In general, I have found that we can retain students by using the following strategies:

• Use engaging activities and exercises that mimic real-life (and involve their peers)

• Focus on in-demand courses and programs related to what (at-risk) students do well.

• Provide pre-tests for the content or knowledge area to be discussed as well as tests and post-tests after students have reviewed the materials and obtained feedback, respectively

• Monitor students' progress using technology (such as Learning Management Systems' analytics)

• As the system analyzes and uncovers a problem (i.e., missing tests or low performance), seek early intervention (i.e., what's up?; why did you miss the pre-test?)

• Provide in-demand practical skills that at-risk students feel they can use to find a future job and improve their financial situation. Relevance is key!

• Implement individualized, self-paced career training experiences and programs in the student's area of interest.

• If a student is going to drop (or it's being forced to withdraw for a semester or year due to low grades), provide an alternative short career path, for instance, a one-semester career certification training program. It's an efficient and inexpensive way to keep at-risk students engaged and hopeful about their futures!

• Develop a strong support group by networking (i.e., invite at least three significant members to your career network every day.)

• Build strong career relationships (i.e., schedule at least one personal Zoom meeting per day with someone in your network to listen and share your daily activities and work experiences.)

• Study and earn relevant industry certifications in your field and, of course, add to your resume and career website. Yes, in the information age, you need to promote your accomplishments.

• Exercise, meditate, eat healthily, have fun, and be compassionate with yourself and others.

• Create a personal mission statement—including attainable goals and actionable tasks.

• Define your value proposition (i.e., what you are doing to contribute to your family, friends, society, community, and work environment.)

• For additional information about career development, please join our free AI/Managerial Strategy/Career Strategy course by contacting me at walter@coursewell.com.

  This blog is dedicated to “Mamita” and “La Familia.”

7 Ways to Building a Job-Resilient Career

1. Stay competitive by gaining a new in-demand skill every month.

2. Develop a strong support group by networking (i.e., invite at least three significant members to your career network every day.)

3. Build strong career relationships (i.e., schedule at least one personal Zoom meeting per day with someone in your network to listen and share your daily activities and work experiences.)

4. Study and earn relevant industry certifications in your field and, of course, add to your resume and career website. Yes, in the information-age, you need to promote your accomplishments.

5. Exercise, meditate, eat healthy, have fun, and be compassionate with yourself and others.

6. Create a personal mission statement—including attainable goals and actionable tasks.

7. Define your value proposition (i.e., what you are doing to contribute to your family, friends, society, community, and work environment.)

What is Information Management?

IM = IT + PM

Information Management (IM) integrates the knowledge, methods, and techniques you will normally learn in the Information Technology (IT) and Project Management (PM) fields.

Information Management comprises the management of people, data & computer systems, management information systems (MIS), business processes, databases, security, telecommunications, hardware, software, people, resources, and the networks an organization use to conduct its business and e-commerce operations in an efficient and effective way.

Information Management encompasses almost every business field—from the healthcare and finance industry to the construction, engineering, manufacturing, configuration management, and service management industries. All enterprises and organizations need information-age workers knowledgeable in the IT & PM areas. And gaining certification credentials in those two fields provide you with added validation of your expertise.

IT & PM Job Training Works!

A recent article in the New York Times titled "Job Training Works. So Why Not Do More?" applauds the success of in-demand career certification training programs, such as Information Technology certification in computers and networking (i.e., CompTIA A+ and Network+), among several others.

The article focuses on the merits of a "Women in Technology" job-training program sponsored by a non-profit organization in New York. The success of job-training programs has been further replicated and validated by WorkAdvance --where a variety of organizations created experimental in-demand training programs spanning from IT to healthcare.  This real-life "experiment" demonstrated that job-training participants were able to increase earnings. Further, many participants felt very hopeful about their career path and future earning potential.

So, Job Training Works. But, as the article asks: why not do more?

Job or career training has also been used very effectively to retain employees in their current jobs or to promote employees within their firm. Employees value these types of on-the-job-training as much as their salary & benefits. And employers value the industry-based certification training credentials that participants obtain. So, everyone wins.

But, now, can career training programs also help retain and persistently engage students? In my experience leading and offering in-demand career training, sponsored by the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and private foundations, I have witnessed how these types of job-related, practical training, can improve student retention---even when these extracurricular programs are not generally being regarded as a genuine academic pursuit for faculty.

During the last twenty years, I have been incorporating practical training exercises in my online business courses at Florida Gulf Coast University (from CompTIA A+ and Excel training to e-commerce and webpage development exercises) with great success. Essentially, close to 100% of the participants and students have passed our courses with at least a C+ average and the general class average has been around B+.

I believe it's time to try this practical approach with the general student population, particularly with at-risk students (or courses, where there is a high dropout rate.) In general, I have found that we can retain students by using the following strategies:

• Use engaging activities and exercises that mimic real-life (and involve their peers)

• Focus on in-demand courses and programs related to what (at-risk) students do well

• Provide pre-tests for the content or knowledge area to be discussed as well as tests and post-tests, after students have reviewed the materials and obtained feedback, respectively

• Monitor students' progress using technology (such as Learning Management Systems' analytics)

• As the system analyzes and uncovers a problem (i.e., missing tests or low performance), seek early intervention (i.e., what's up?; why did you miss the pre-test?)

• Provide in-demand practical skills that at-risk students feel they can use to find a future job and improve their financial situation. Relevance is key!

• Implement individualized, self-paced career training experiences and programs in the student's area of interest.

• If a student is going to drop (or it's being forced to withdraw for a semester or year, due to low grades), provide an alternative short career path, for instance, a one-semester career certification training program. It's a very practical and inexpensive way to keep at-risk students engaged and hopeful about their futures!

Coupling Worldwide Online Internships with Certification Preparation Courses.

Should we couple internships with project-based online learning?

“There’s a lot of evidence that project-based learning has a better impact on student learning and readiness for life after high school.”

In short, “a program of education that eschews traditional teach-and-test methods in favor of immersive lessons that challenge students with problems or scenarios that promote self-directed investigation, critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork.”

(The Science of Learning: Our Amazing Brains: Putting Knowledge to Use: Learning at Every Age, 2020)

___________

WHAT WE DO

Coursewell provides worldwide online internships coupled with career certification preparation—better, faster. ©®™

Coursewell faculty simulate real work-environments, where you learn and gain worldwide job-experience (rotating internships) via real-life Business (BIZ), Information Technology (IT), Project Management (PM), and Health Administration Systems (HAS) lessons and work-tasks (i.e., real scenarios, work-tasks & projects provided by business & industry.)

Coursewell.com ©®™ All Rights Reserved by Adaptiva Corp

“There’s a lot evidence that project-based learning has a better impact on student learning and readiness for life after high school.”

In short, “a program of education that eschews traditional teach-and-test methods in favor of immersive lessons that challenge students with problems or scenarios that promote self-directed investigation, critical thinking, creativity and teamwork.”

(The Science of Learning: Our Amazing Brains: Putting Knowledge to Use: Learning at Every Age, 2020)

Coursewell is where work-interns and certification seekers can develop a faster, happier (perhaps), better online career by getting prepared for information-age and emerging jobs!

Coursewell offers online career internships & certification preparation in high-demand business, construction, cyber-security, engineering, health administration, and information technology (IT) areas-—as a smart, stackable, fluid, multi-channel experience. Rather than just videos & assessments, participants’ knowledge & skills are reinforced via university faculty interaction in real-time.

From business, construction, project management, and health administration to cyber-security, engineering, and information technology: Everyone can learn & mingle in real-time.

Participants are unhindered by time, place, credits, grades, or admission constraints! That is, participants, don't have to be necessarily registered at a university or college to participate in these online programs. But our instructors are certified, experienced university faculty.

Coursewell’s goals are to (1) enrich participants’ careers & knowledge; and (2) improve the chances of being hired in challenging times. Coursewell seeks to accomplish its goals by providing (a) real-life experiential mentoring using real-time video chats (i.e., Zoom); and (b) comprehensive (deep mastery) online certification training via Learning Management Systems (i.e., Canvas LMS).

At Coursewell, virtual mingling forums are free. To participate, write to walter@coursewell.com.

Below are Coursewell’s benefits & value proposition for:

1. EMPLOYERS & ENTREPRENEURS

: Invest in Human Capital.

: Freely, interact with your potential future employees and faculty-experts during on-the-job training.

: Bridge employees’ soft- and cyber-skill gaps while on the job training.

: Leverage AI and IT to enhance your Company operations & revenue streams.

: Enhance efficiencies & revenues by training your staff for times of disruption and beyond.

2. STUDENTS & LEARNERS

: Socialize, interplay, discuss, and mingle with your peers and faculty!

: Learn from university faculty and peers in real-time (it’s more than forums, videos & tests.)

: Improve your technical, social & communication skills to increase the chances of being recruited and hired.

3. FACULTY & RETIREE-EXPERTS

: Help us grow by offering your best online courses via Zoom and Canvas LMS.

: Have enjoyed, interplay, discuss, and socialize with your students using “social presence” techniques.

: Earn one-third (1/3) to one-half (1/2) of the revenues generated by your real-life courses—depending on the sponsoring university.

COURSEWELL PROVIDES AN ENGAGING, REAL-LIFE, REAL-TIME, F2F*, INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT FROM ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. ONLINE COURSES SPAN FROM AI & CYBER-SECURITY TO DESIGN & PROJECT MANAGEMENT.

*F2F: Face to Face, Online Real-time Teaching and Learning

**F2S, P2P: Faculty to Student, Peer to Peer: Real-Time Interaction with Faculty & Peers—similar to a real-campus without the travel.

“Start from ground zero with real-time, online F2F classes, supported by real-life university faculty supported by a library of thousands of self-paced, individualized, online competency-based courses—including real-time discussions, virtual community forums, short videos, interplay activities, 3-D gamified environments, video chats, and laboratory simulations. Coursewell partners with employers to provide engaging and supportive learning while you work.” W. Rodriguez, Ph.D., PE

During the last four decades, Coursewell’s Founder, Prof. Dr. Walter Rodriguez, PE, has been delivering and teaching “how to use and leverage IT” to improve job-seekers careers—from AI and IT to Project Management and Health Administration at no-cost or low-cost—thanks to his sponsored grants and research projects. Dr. Rodriguez has focused on helping job-seekers meet their career and professional goals—particularly women, minorities, veterans, and financially-distressed individuals. And he has been linking students and participants to their peers, university faculty, and business executives by creating a virtual community of emeritus faculty and retirees as well as working professionals in the field. The latest initiative consists in creating on-the-job training opportunities by matching employers with job-seekers.

Unsurprisingly, more people are finding themselves unprepared for study and work in the business, engineering, information technology and healthcare administration fields, because of shortcomings in communication and technical competencies. Further, job-seekers may also lack the required analytical, computing, systems-thinking, problem-solving, software development, and computer-applications skills.

Coursewell is the result of Dr. Walter Rodriguez’s sponsored projects and initiatives with government and private organizations. For instance, his last project delivered online health administration, and IT courses to thousands of military spouses under the sponsorship of the DoD. His just-in-time video-training content, real-time discussion-forums and 3-D gamified environments help students and organizations reach their career goals while enjoying the learning experience.

“By integrating best practices from the science of teamwork with the latest in mobile learning technologies, Coursewell will revolutionize distributed teamwork and team learning - occurring when workers and learners are geographically dispersed and often interacting at different times.”

Coursewell seeks to: (1) improve students' retention and persistence (via AI mobile applications, distributed teamwork, and summer/online/mobile preparatory programs); and (2) lower the cost of AI, business, healthcare administration, information technology (IT) and project management (PM) education, training and job-readiness (via online, open source textbooks and very low-cost, adaptive, personalized, self-paced video instructional materials) by:

(I.) partnering with companies and institutions; (II.) leveraging technological innovations and advancements in AI mobile learning technologies; and (III.) gaining from the digital economies of scale derived from AI, automation, block chain, natural language processing (NLP), robotics, and machine-learning technologies.

Coursewell: Advancing AI Mobile Learning

SELF-PACED, JOB PREPARATION CERTIFICATION TRAINING

ONLINE, ON-DEMAND, ON MOBILE DEVICES

Participants will enhance their AI-strategy, computing, systems-thinking, problem-solving, communication, business, finance, marketing, project-management, information-technology, and software-applications' career & job skills; unhindered by time and place constraints! The online career training modules are adaptive, mobile, self-paced and personalized to satisfy your participants' cybersecurity,  software programming, project management, information technology, health administration systems, business administration, and many other digital-age pre-college, college and career needs, based on their personality, competencies, abilities and the job opportunities they wish to pursue. 

“It was challenging but gratifying! Now, I understand how AI, business & computers can enhance my business and my life. It’s was fun to learn this way! I feel ready for the next phase in my work life.” Dana S.

METHODOLOGY

The process starts with an application and online consultation with one of our faculty advisers to determine your participants' career goals, needs and wants. Then, we create an in-demand career program that responds to their unique abilities & training needs.

Using our Coursewell's adaptive, on-demand, mobile-learning video app, we have trained, assessed, and certified a new breed of information technology and project management specialists who are proactive, knowledgeable, and technically proficient.

Industry values and require PM, IT, business software apps, software developers, healthcare administration, and other career certifications. Our assessments, learning modules, and instructors will help you and/or your staff assess, validate, and earn national IT, business, healthcare admin, and other career certifications from anywhere, anytime! Your participants will be prepared for an information-age IT, business, and other career specializations in 10 to 16 weeks. Contact us today at walter@coursewell.com or complete the form below.

What is Reinforced Certification Training?: Definition

Reinforced Certification Training is a way of instruction that couples the best features of online career certification training (i.e., asynchronous learning, prerecorded video lessons, interactive games, self-assessments, online quizzes) with experiential mentoring using real-life certified professionals and university faculty via video conferencing apps (such as Zoom).

Like learning guitar, violin or piano, in reinforced training participants are required to master the content (lessons) before moving to the next lesson. Faculty use live interplay, games, and many of the features of Learning Management Systems (such as an enriched Canvas LMS environment) to support their courses and provide instructional flexibility by design.

Although this human-centered way of learning draws from concepts learned from Artificial Intelligence’s Machine Learning, such as reinforced learning*, the learning processes are actually supervised and managed by real university faculty that are monitoring assessment results and stacking lessons based on the participants’ progress. It’s interesting to note that by studying how AI/machine learning can assist humans to automate tasks, humans (instructors) are learning new ways of teaching by using some of the AI concepts as well as coupling AI and humans in a collaborative, symbiotic relationship.

* To be sure, reinforced learning “is an area of machine learning concerned with how software agents ought to take actions in an environment in order to maximize the notion of cumulative reward. Reinforcement learning is one of three basic machine learning paradigms, alongside supervised learning and unsupervised learning.”

___________

To learn and mingle more, please visit Coursewell.com or email walter@coursewell.com anytime.

Coursewell offers reinforced certification training courses in high-demand business, construction, cyber-security, engineering, health administration, and information technology (IT) areas-—as a smart, stackable, fluid, multi-channel experience. Rather than just videos & assessments, participants’ knowledge is reinforced via interaction with university faculty in real-time.

From business, construction, project management, and health administration to cyber-security, engineering, and information technology: Everyone can learn & mingle in real-time.

Participants are unhindered by time, place, credits, grades, or admission constraints! That is, participants, don't have to be necessarily registered at a university or college to participate in these online programs. But our instructors are certified, experienced, university faculty.

Coursewell’s goals are to (1) enrich participants’ careers & knowledge; and (2) improve the chances of being hired in challenging times. Coursewell seeks to accomplish its goals by providing (a) real-life experiential mentoring using real-time video chats (i.e., Zoom); and (b) comprehensive (deep mastery) online certification training via Learning Management Systems (i.e., Canvas LMS).

Providing Just-in-Time Support for Online Students

Below are a few ways to provide just-in-time support for our online students--via proactive, remedial, and performance-monitoring with human or automated (AI) tools supported by human mentors/experts. Any other thoughts?

• Provide an individual or online group orientation via video conferencing (Zoom, Teams, etc.) before classes start.

• Anticipate requests from students that are lag behind the first day of classes.

• Permit self-scheduling appointments for consultation with an advisor.

• Monitor and report progress daily.

• Schedule outreach at scheduled intervals throughout training regarding their program progress/status.

• Provide both technical and remedial support. And provide a corrective learning plan.

• Be willing to extend the deadlines for a few assignments, in response to the student's request. Everyone experiences a family or personal or work issue from time to time.

For other techniques, please download or read the "Improving Persistence ..." article at https://www.linkedin.com/in/walter-rodriguez-ph-d-p-e-608454/ or check: DOI:10.18848/1835-9795/CGP/v12i03/19-39

Up-skilling and Stacking Your Credentials

A wise colleague, friend & philosopher shared this Fast Company article. At the time, I commented on his posting: "Based on my experience (as both an A/E/C professional and an IT/PM/Business professor), I believe that students can find a niche by upskilling and staking skills without sacrificing their passion. The staking of credentials made a significant difference in both my professional & faculty career. As the article indicates: 'building your skill stack requires following your passion, and it can help you move up the corporate ladder.' Further, the articles say: 'if you want to be unique at (a) broad level, you need to combine skills that nobody else has combined before.' Finally, 'following your passions is super important because most people don't have passions around just one topic. The combination is what makes you unique.' Also, I have seen how my graduates have been able to match and upwardly integrate their skill sets. If you have excellent soft skills, seek to pursue technology micro-certifications and other credentials from your local university. This approach might very well position you for your next job!" Walter Rodriguez, PhD, PE

On Being Ahead of the Curve in Times of Disruption

Some public institutions have been ahead of the online-education curve and at the forefront of responsive curricula! Like Coursewell, FGCU, UMGC, WGU, and others, they didn't have to make any significant changes in their course delivery and student-support systems.

Lesson: In both academia and industry, we must have the foresight, preparedness, and readiness to serve our students and staff in times of disruption--from hurricanes and earthquakes to pandemics and automation.

How? By designing and developing relevant curricula. And, more importantly, by developing state-of-the-art student-support and course delivery systems that respond to the impending future and the individual needs of our students.

We are finding that AI machine learning will have a tremendous impact on everything we do. And our students and graduates must be ready to "collaborate" with AI systems and continuously learn while on the job.

If the university is not offering a particular course, students must be proactive and ready to learn on their own by seeking online programs.

My new article, co-authored with Dr. Patricia Angle, titled "Can Machine Learning Enhance Human Learning?" addresses that need.

Be safe, and keep the good work!

Walter Rodriguez, PhD, PE