Abstract:

While educators and other stakeholders rushed to maintain the learning momentum in the educational arena to hold onto some semblance of normalcy, the future of our students’ futures were not fully realized, especially in terms of helping them to focus on their career planning. While many educators and administrators were focused on setting up online learning in remote locations, enabling teachers with technology and support, some of these educational administrators and teachers may have lost their way in terms of thinking past the Pandemic period. Specifically, while many argued with the decade-old questions whether online learning did achieve the same results as traditional Face-to-Face (F2F) learning, achievements and assessments were only part of the educational landscape that students had to face. The other side of their educational horizon was the future, especially for those finishing their formal education and deciding whether to go onward for further education or to enter the world of work. Consequently, the larger question was whether the students were not only academically prepared, but also equipped with proper skill sets for their career toolbox. This brought into question whether educators and administrators were focusing on not just academics, but also properly preparing the students with skill sets that they could use immediately following their graduation or at least to help them realize a need for additional education and/or training. Therefore, in the context of higher education, in some business education programs they offered a course on virtual consulting. This course became quite popular in several universities because it helped the students to learn how to become a virtual consultant in eight weeks or less and how to use technology and their content knowledge to create technology-based elements such as a web page, electronic brochure, a SWOT analysis connected with a strategic case study, and a business plan, which they could use as the basis for their consulting practice. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how this course could be linked with many different programs of study and help not only link the program of study with these newly acquired skill sets, as well as to help students to plan out their careers while using learning technology. Also, it should be noted that this given creative approach to skills sets in this course could be used in any type of learning environment, whether it be online learning or with the traditional learning environment. Furthermore, this paper will outline the steps in which this 8-week course was created and put into place, as well as examining the effectiveness of the course for student academic credit and career preparation. The author of this paper has taught this course for several years and can attest to its value not only in the business and management programs of study, but additional focus on its potential link with other programs of study in which a portfolio could be created as the final project. Specifically, the final portfolio for this class is a web page with links to all the various learning activities created by the student, which in the end could be shared in future job interviews as unique learning achievements created by the student during their educational journey.

Keywords:

Online learning, consulting, web page, electronic portfolio.