I was grateful for the opportunity to apply my M.Ed. program learning through community service with the development of 20 one-hour online modules for health careers. The goal of the modules is to help develop academically proficient and self-confident future healthcare professionals, with an emphasis on underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students in order to address disparities in the health professions workforce in South Carolina.

Artifact - Job Aid

Site

My internship took place at South Carolina Area Health Education Consortium (SC AHEC). While I am employed by this state agency, the internship project involved work outside my typical scope of practice and allowed me to work more directly with regional AHEC centers, who are private not-for-profit 501(c)3 organizations.

Supervisor

Paula Jones, MBA, Director of Health Careers Program (HCP) at SC AHEC, was my internship supervisor. She manages regional and statewide collaboration for project implementation and expansion of the Career Options for Health Professions programs. Paula also develops and facilitates innovative activities for the Health Careers Academies targeting high school and undergraduate students pursuing a career in the health professions.

Role

As a former middle/high school teacher with years of experience in healthcare administration, I served as one of the subject matter experts and collaborated with other subject matter experts, which were the HCP Coordinators throughout South Carolina. In addition, I served as the instructional designer and developer for the online modules.

Work

During the internship, I worked with HCP Coordinators in order to develop 20 one-hour online modules. Prior to my internship project, the HCP Coordinators had delivered in-person instruction to as many high school students as possible given the limitations of time and funding. The primary goal of developing the 20 free, self-paced, online instructional modules is to reach significantly more high school students throughout the state in order to increase understanding of the various careers in healthcare and necessary skills. For more information about each of the modules, please review the SC AHEC HCP Modules Catalog.

Activities

• Designed and developed online instructional modules related to healthcare careers and skills, which included:
  • Collaborated with HCP Coordinators to determine learning objectives for instructional modules
  • Researched, located, and utilized educational resources for module content development
  • Developed pre- and post-tests, assignments, and evaluations for instructional modules
  • Coordinated with SMEs for review and implementation of instructional modules
• Created job aids for (1) staff workflow to implement instructional modules and (2) student directions to complete instructional modules
• Analyzed summative evaluation data for an existing instructional module
• Continually reflected on the instructional design and development process

Lessons Learned

During the internship experience, I learned to avoid “recreating the wheel” and the importance of conducting an assessment of existing resources prior to developing new content. I was able to use some content which existed in the SC AHEC undergraduate and graduate level curriculum along with content developed by established organizations within the healthcare field. In addition, I learned to follow the key components for successful project management, including clear and specific project requirements, regular and effective communications, appropriate allocation of work to team members, and detailed timelines for task completion. Finally, I learned that there will be obstacles and minor set-backs but those should be viewed as opportunities to make positive changes. Despite some frustrations along the way, I tried to stay focused on continual quality improvement to make the instructional design process more efficient and effective.