Cait's "Students" - Part I

Before I post on the affordances/ disaffordances of the testing tools on bcpLearning, it'd probably help to give some background information on who our students are and why they use our programs.

Current "Students"
As I mentioned in my introduction post, my current work does not include teching students directly. However, a majority of my day is spent working in bcpLearning, an online training program for international trade professionals. Our students fall into three main categories.

1. Companies: Employee Training
   For companies involved in international trade, training staff members is an important part of maintaining compliance with the laws and regulations governing international trade. These companies need a cost effective way to train employees and demonstrate that training. This type of "student" comes with two distinct sets of needs: the needs of the employees (students) and the needs of their managers. The managers use our technology to select courses that are relevant to each employee's role within the company, create accounts for those employees, and assign the desired training courses without having to send the employees "off-campus" for training. They also use our "Reports" function to track students' progress through the assigned course and whether they've achieved "certification status."
   
   The employees (students) need to be able to use our technology to study and demonstrate to their employer that they've completed their assigned courses. They also need to actually learn the information in the course so that the can apply it to their everyday work. These students encompass a wide breadth of experience in using computers and the internet, so the courses require a very simple layout that can be navigated easily, even by the employees who are most uncomfortable in digital environments. The courses are also broken up into manageable sections to make it easy for students to digest the information and for their employers to track their progress.
   
   The main conflict comes at course completion and lies between the employer's need to receive quantifiable results and the employee's need to feel confident that they've acquired knowledge that can be applied in the real world. We've started using two different types of exams, multiple choice and situational, to try to address this conflict and meet the needs of both parties, but that's another blog post.
   
   
2. Trade Specialists/Consultants
   Certified Customs Specialist (CCS) and Certified Export Specialist (CES) are the industry-recognized accreditations for the international trade community. Students with these accreditations require 20 credit points annually to maintain their status as a CCS or CES. To meet these needs, we offer over 100 CCS points and are currently growing our CES credits by developing a new suite of export related courses. These students use technology to take courses online on their own time-table in order to fulfill the requirements for their accreditation. Once they complete a course, they need a certificate of completion to present to the NCBFAA to receive credit. Because they need to earn 20 new points each year, these students require a course selection that is constantly updated and expanded.
   
   
3. Customs Broker Exam Students
   These students are individuals who plan on taking the Customs Broker Exam with the goal of becoming licensed Customs Brokers. They are spread out around the country and need a course that they can access at any time from any location. Although it's technically an "open book" exam, the material tested encompasses over four thousand pages of regulation and classification sources. It's a difficult exam with an average failure rate of over 80%, which can often overwhelm students from the beginning.
   
   These students need to learn 1.) how to read and understand the regulations, 2.) how to perform the functions of a Customs Broker, and 3.) how to study for the exam. To meet their needs, this course offers a number of learning formats by providing an online lesson plan, textbooks, downloadable audio lectures/audio drills, 10 past practice exams, and a "mentor" for guidance. Because the regulations and classification texts are often difficult to understand, students frequently need a little more help than the often isolated learning experience provided by online training programs.
   
   That's where the mentor comes in. Students have the opportunity to make the course more interactive by posting questions in an open discussion forum (see right). The forum is monitored by the mentor, who answers these questions on a daily basis for the three month period leading up to the next exam, which is offered twice a year. Students can see the questions posted by other students and learn from them as well. There's also the opportunity for students to open threads and discuss areas of study with one another. (On a side note, I took the April exam this year and it's been mentioned that I might be able to work with a few of the mentor questions now that I've passed the exam. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for my first interaction with our students, even in a limited scope.)