Introducing Public Education Practices Into the Corporate World
I started a new career as a Fleet management technician in a call center and closed my toolbox for the last time professionally. Being able to use my knowledge of automotive technology, I was provided the opportunity to pursue a degree in business administration. While working toward my degree I was offered a position as the technical trainer and that is when my life changed, as I was a professional educator and fell in love with the field. Once promoted to the Supervisor of the learning and development department and I knew I could make a big difference!
There was a gap in knowledge transfer from the classroom to the students and we kept trying the same learning theories with little success. I knew I needed to do something and decided to research the education field and found one of the top education graduate schools in the nation at Michigan State University. I decided that I would use the organization’s tuition reimbursement program to learn as much as I could about the public learning sector and implement the theories into the corporate world.
Setting my goals high, I know this would not be an easy task and received three letters of recommendation from my direct chain of command and began working on these goals immediately. Not knowing what to expect from my professors, I explained to each one my situation and goals for each class. To my surprise, all of them were not only receptive, but also extremely excited to help me reach my goals and allowed me to complete each assignment with my audience in mind. My managers were also excited to try new learning styles and allowed me to tie my school assignments directly in with my work projects and were eager to see the increased productivity.
Beginning my program, I started with my online teaching certificate. I was able to implement theories from each class that increased the knowledge transfer of clients and automotive technologies through designing for interaction, technology design and electronic assessments that we have never done in the past. I followed that up with my serious gaming certificate that I was able to make learning fun and adults even wanted in to learn without our normal “death by PowerPoint” seminars. Finally, I decided to complete my MAET program by attending the year-2 hybrid program where I really dug my feet into leadership, the psychology of learning and educational research. I focused on the training evaluation methods and returns on investments, thus changing the entire we design, implement and reflect on training programs.
Having clear goals walking to my masters of education program helped me to keep my eyes forward at all times and even though I changed my pedagogy that was my intent and my goals up front. With the assistance of great professors, colleagues, peers and managers, I was able to reach my educational goals and change the way we teach in my organization forever!
