Kristie Theis

To have a valuable WBL experience for students & businesses, it's important to communicate the expectations and objectives to all involved. Coordinating with teachers, counselors, and students will help align the goals with the student and respective business partners.

These steps helped me realize ways that I can improve my process of finding training sites and the orientation processes for all involved. 

This has helped me understand the importance of a training agreement and offered ideas of where I can improve. I really like the idea of having the students complete a self-assessment. I would like to incorporate that into my WBL programs. 

I appreciate that the course recognizes the number of roles WBL coordinators have! I like the idea of using surveys to collect information from students and business partners. This information is helpful to know what is going well and how the WBL program can improve. 

I’ve learned the basics of work-base learning, its value and the different types. I will use this information to refine the current WBL program that I coordinate. 

Managing job orders involves much more than simply sending a lot of resumes—it requires matching candidates, preparing candidates, following up consistently, and maintaining communication with employers. There is a lot of time and preparation involved in the process to nurture relationships and meet the needs of our students and business partners. 

Documenting employer contact is something that I realize I need to work on. Not only will it help me remember important information, it will also help with being more organized. I like the idea of having a form to complete and adding notes about each contact. I also found the techniques to deal with objections helpful. This is not something I've been particularly good at, so these strategies help provide some guidelines to follow. 

I appreciated the recognition of the demands of being an effective job developer and the importance of being persistent, as difficult as that may be at times. I realized the importance of my own personal development in addition to the being knowledgeable about my institution, the industries, market, and my job seekers.