Online Students Develop Marketable Professional Skills

Article published in EDUCAUSE Review, about professional skills developed while taking online courses at Columbia University School of Social Work (CSSW). Students preparing to take online courses anticipated gaining professional skills in addition to their online learning of the course content. A survey of the marketable skills students wanted to obtain found that 38 percent chose all 10 of the professional options offered as possible answers. The top three skills students wanted to gain were "Confidence with online technologies and environments," "Self-motivation, initiative, and independent learning," and "Experience with multiple types of online software.” The article quotes students/alumni Derrick Li-Wei Kung, Francene Campbell, Kathleen Ebbitt, Maciel Jimenez, and Professor Steven Schinke