Designing a virtual work readiness program through intern feedback

March 13th, 2020 forever changed my outlook on learning and solidified that I should continue my journey to become a curriculum designer. The pivot to virtual learning and the shelter in place order sparked something in me creatively and drove me to try my luck in starting a career in the tech industry. Teaching myself and training the staff in my organization to use tools such as Google Classroom, Zoom, social media, and encouraging student voice has shown me the important use of games and assessments to engage learners online.

My current job title as a Youth Development Specialist entails teaching employment readiness workshops and life skills to 16-24 year olds and case managing youth at their internship sites. All of our services were in person prior to the pandemic, so before my organization made a decision on what we were going to do, I did my research first and proposed it to my director. Within a one week turnaround I created a virtual model of our program using Zoom, Google Classroom, Kahoot, and social media apps.

To individualize the virtual internship experience we used the organization’s case plan document and digitized it to focus on specific support we can provide to the youth. It was later named an Individual Work Plan. The case plan survey was a guide that helped design the content facilitated in workshops and case management. With youth’s buy-in to what they were learning, their confidence to gain employment on their own was a huge outcome for our first virtual cohort and many were able to gain employment and work towards their career goals.

Online weekly workshops were held and my coworker and I made sure to get feedback consistently from our interns. It wasn’t until I enrolled in my Masters in Instructional Design program when I realized that I conducted indirect assessments. Sometimes as our question of the day we asked how the program was going for them and what we can do to make the virtual workshops a better experience for them. We also included feedback as assignments every few weeks to ensure that their voice mattered and that their time is valuable. If there were any adjustments to be made, we wanted to do so as soon as possible to keep our interns engaged.

One form of feedback we received was to include more games during the workshop. At first we only had activities to do in breakout rooms and a Jeopardy game. I immediately began to research online learning tools to use during Zoom workshops. I knew about Kahoot from a previous job, now knowing it is a formative assessment tool, I included it as a way to gamify our program and incorporate more check for understanding tools. We encouraged youth to use social media apps such as Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat to add creativity to their assignments but also tap into what we know they are interested in. Apps such as Canva and Photo Grid were new to them. We explained the various uses of the apps and they were interested in learning more about digital literacy and how it can be useful in the workplace.

I delved deeper into finding online games and tools to engage our interns to motivate them to stay in our program. Intrinsic motivation played a huge role since interns wanted the knowledge and work experience but so did extrinsic motivation. They were paid to gain employment readiness skills and incentives were given for fulfilling all of the components of the program weekly. Interns continued to show up for workshop therefore, it was up to me to continue to build an online program that resembled the in person experience the youth were looking forward to. This meant my facilitation energy was always high and I made sure to create a safe space for inclusion, fun, and full of support.

As our first virtual cohort came to an end, one of their last assignments was to once again give feedback on the overall program from beginning to end and what they got out of it, also what would they change about it. From the many assessments that were given to our interns, our evaluation and learning team liked the idea and developed a workshop survey to give facilitators data on the workshop according to our interns org wide. The last survey was the document that encouraged me to get into Instructional Design. I was able to take a fully in person program and design a virtual one based on student voice and indirect assessments. 8 virtual cohorts later, the pandemic produced the highest number of completion and employment in our organization’s history. All along I was applying Instructional Design theories, models, and ideas and did not know it. It made me fall in love with curriculum design and development all over again. I even found a new liking towards assessments and gaming. Lastly, this experience inspired me to continue doing my own research and development in the field of instructional design so I can find my place in such a saturated career field.