Leveraging Digital Platforms to Scale Health Care Workforce Development: The Career 911 Massive Open Online Course

Abstract

Background: Health care is the fastest growing occupational sector in the United States, but students from low-income and underrepresented minority (URM) backgrounds often lack mentorship and basic information about health care careers and pathways. Objectives: We developed the Career 911 massive open online course (MOOC) to help students from diverse backgrounds to explore and build career portfolios to enter health-related professions. Methods: We describe the evolution since 2014 of the Career 911 MOOC and lessons learned. Results/Lessons Learned: More than20,000 students have enrolled in Career 911. Career 911 has served as a learning resource for schools and health care pipeline programs. Key lessons learned include cultivating strategic partnerships and networks, using community engagement efforts to counter technology’s potential to exacerbate educational disparities, minimizing disruptions from changes to technology, and optimizing data for program evaluation. Conclusions: Lessons learned on community engagement to develop a MOOC, and anticipating technology-related challenges and program evaluation needs can guide future work to leverage MOOCs and other digital learning technologies for scaling health care workforce development.

Literature Review on MOOCs on Sensory (Olfactory) Learning

“…The discussed area of cognitive styles, understood as a multiplicity of approaches to learning contents, is added. In other words, beyond the perceptual level, information is organized and processed according to individual modalities that are affected by one's personal history of learning [42,43].…”

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) for long-distance education in geriatric medicine across Europe

“…Blended learning models have already been proven a successful learning experience for medical students also in geriatric medicine [4]. Given these recent developments, the internet has become an important resource for teachers and students on all levels of education and training [5], also helping students from diverse backgrounds to explore and build career portfolios to enter health-related professions [6] and the interest to access platforms which openly and widely share knowledge, information or educational material is increasing. [7] and have been used to disseminate knowledge generated throughout international collaborations [8].…”

Architecture Matters—Moving Beyond "Business as Usual": The Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative

“…In this article, Taylor et al 9 demonstrate that students from across Chicago, regardless of the institution, can indeed work together and contribute to each other’s learning. In another article focused on education, Simon et al 10 report an innovative initiative aimed at leveling the playing field for underserved students through the development of the Career 911 massive open online course, which was designed to help students from diverse backgrounds to explore and build career portfolios to enter health-related professions. Career 911 is emblematic of how massive open online courses can democratize education, by affording accessibility to anyone with an internet connection.…”

“…Career 911 is emblematic of how massive open online courses can democratize education, by affording accessibility to anyone with an internet connection. 10…”

“…Students are dropping out of this leaky pipeline and the existing architecture around them do little to reduce their isolation. 9,10…”