Barbour, M. K., Unger, K., & Toker, S. (2010, October). Career Forward: A course for meeting the K-12 online learning requirement. A paper presented at the annual convention of the Association for Educational Communication and Technology, Anaheim, CA. In 2006 Michigan became the first jurisdiction in the United States to require students to have an online learning experience in order to graduate from high school. In response to this legislation, the Michigan Virtual School created a career planning course entitled CareerForward and made it available to schools free of charge to allow them to meet the new online learning requirement. This session will describe the CareerFoward course and content, discuss the data collected, and identify specific suggestions for the implementation of CareerForward in schools as a way to meet the states’ online learning graduation requirement.

1. CAREER FORWARD: A COURSE FOR
MEETING THE K-12 ONLINE
LEARNING REQUIREMENT
Wayne State University
Michael K. Barbour
Kelly L. Unger
SacipToker

2. BACKGROUND
 2006 – Michigan adds online learning graduation
requirement
 20 hrs
 Fully online
 Integrated into existing course
 Online component into all core course

3. CAREER FORWARD
 Michigan Department of Education and Michigan
Virtual University (MVU)
 Funding provided by the Microsoft Corporation
 Online learning program created to assist middle
and high school students
 A self-contained motivational tool that helped
students address questions about their futures
 Purpose:
 Planning future career paths
 Developing an understanding of what it takes to achieve
that desired career

4. CAREER FORWARD
 4-6 week long course:
 What am I going to do with my life?
 What is the working world like?
 How do I match my interests with work?
 Allowed Michigan students to meet the new online
learning requirement for graduation – Fall 2007
 MVS made available to any school in the state –
December 2008

5. EVALUATION OF CAREER FORWARD
 2007-2008
 Pre- and post- surveys
 Approximately 3500 students enrolled in the
CareerForward course
 The purpose of the evaluation was primarily
formative
 Provide MVS with the reliable information needed to
improve the design and delivery of the CareerForward
course).

6. EVALUATION OF CAREER FORWARD
 Impact on students:
 Attitudes towards career planning
 Overall student satisfaction with the course
 Student suggestions on ways to improve
CareerForward
 What impact does taking CareerForward have on student
attitudes towards career planning?
 What are student impressions of the CareerForward course?
 How would students improve the CareerForward course?

7. THE SURVEY
 Demographics
 Gender
 Grade
 Why students were taking CareerForward
 How the CareerForward course was structured (e.g., as
a stand-alone course or part of another course)
 Medium that CareerForward course was delivered.

8. THE SURVEY
 14 statements related to career planning and asked
to rate each one based on a Likert scale
 In the post-course survey students were asked
 where they completed most of their CareerForward
course
 in open-ended questions to specifically comment on a
change they would make in the CareerForward course,
along with the best and most difficult things about the
course.

9. THE FINDINGS FOR Q1 & Q2
 CareerForward was ineffective in changing student
attitudes towards their future career planning.
 Grade eight and eleven students benefited the
most from taking CareerForward.
 The course actually diminished grade twelve
students’ attitudes towards career planning.
 CareerForward course as part of an existing career
planning course yielded positive results.

10. THE FINDINGS FOR Q1 & Q2
 Increase in student attitudes from respondents who
indicated they took CareerForward as a “part of
another course”
 Students did not enjoy the CareerForward course
while they found it to be helpful and that the course
was a powerful way to gain new information

11. THE FINDINGS FOR Q3
 Qualitative analysis of the three open-ended
prompts:
 If I could make one change in CareerForward it would
be…
 The best thing about CareerForward was…
 The most difficult thing about CareerForward was…

12. If I could make one change in
CareerForward it would be…
 Decreasing the number of videos to be watched
 Reduce the length of the videos
 Eliminate or reduce the redundancy of the written
assignments

13. The best thing about CareerForward
was…
 Think about life after graduation
 The use of video for delivering the content about
each career; and how it allowed students to relate
individual skills to specific careers (including their
own skills sets)
 10% of the students’ responded by saying “nothing”
from the course could be labeled the best

14. The most difficult thing about
CareerForward was…
 Redundancy of written work
 Misalignment of written work with video
 Boring videos
 Material too difficult to understand

15. THE FINDINGS FOR Q3
 Use of videos to be an effective way to deliver the
content
 The specific content that they indicated as the best part
of the course
 However, use of videos and written work throughout the
course became repetitive and boring
 Suggestion: videos could be shortened or segmented,
along with the addition of other ways to deliver the
content and other activities for students to complete

16. CONCLUSION
 This evaluation showed that K-12 online learning
opportunities need to include:
 High levels of interaction between students and content
 Multiple paths designed in the course to support
individualized learner needs
 Various activities for students to complete
 Providing relevant content in a timely manner to the
targeted learner.

17. QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION