Dr. Julie Furst-Bowe is the academic vice president at Chippewa Valley Technical College, a college in the Wisconsin Technical College System (USA) that serves approximately 20,000 students per year. She has been a senior leader in higher education for more than 20 years, and has written numerous articles and given numerous presentations on quality improvement through the use of systems thinking and educational technology in career and technical education. Julie earned her doctorate in workforce education from the University of Minnesota (USA).
Supplementing Online Learning with Instructional Kits
When Chippewa Valley Technical College (Wisconsin, USA) was forced to pivot to online instruction in the spring of 2020, several instructors questioned how to best teach “hands-on” skills in an online environment. The solution was to develop or purchase instructional kits which were delivered to the students so they could continue to engage in skill-building activities. Kits were used in cosmetology, culinary and STEM programs, and each kit included all of the supplies and materials needed to complete a particular experiment, assignment or project. The students made photographs or videos of their finished products to share with the instructors and their classmates. Course success rates with the online instruction and supplementary kits were equivalent to course success rates when the courses had been taught in traditional classrooms and laboratories. This concept is now being expanded to other areas of the college including manufacturing and automotive programs.