The Newly Virtual Workplace: Employers and Trainers Adapt

Abstract

Work-based learning includes opportunities such as internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing, career mentoring, and other hands-on job training that build specific skills and provide students real-world professional experience and networking opportunities. The abrupt shift to virtual educational interactions precipitated by the global�COVID-19 pandemic hit work-based learning opportunities that are often central to career and technical education programs especially hard. The changes needed to keep students learning (and, if applicable, being paid) require creative and rapid adjustments that allow programs to continue pursuing their work-based learning objectives. These adjustments might include solutions such as experimenting with shifts to shorter-term consultancies and short duration �micro-internships� to help strengthen the skills participants acquire in their training and education programs.