{"id":5527,"date":"2016-12-06T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog-prod.qad.com\/blog\/?p=5527"},"modified":"2020-11-06T15:25:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T23:25:40","slug":"online-education-bridge-skills-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qad.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/online-education-bridge-skills-gap","title":{"rendered":"Can Online Education Bridge The Skills Gap?"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”5529″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]At the end of last year, we highlighted an innovative new way companies could address the skills gap by having <\/span>employees continue their education online through top institutions<\/span><\/a>. I was fortunate enough to be able to complete part of the MIT Supply Chain program offered through <\/span>EdX<\/span><\/a>. I want to take this opportunity to talk briefly about the course itself and what these sort of opportunities can mean for the skills gap employers face. <\/span><\/p>\n

Supply Chain Design Program Highlights<\/h2>\n

I enrolled in Supply Chain Design, which is part two of five in obtaining an MIT MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management. Knowing that <\/span>MIT has the top rated supply chain\/logistics program in the United States<\/span> made this opportunity all that much more enticing<\/span>. The course ran over 10 weeks culminating with a final exam. Each week there were two lessons, each of which would be broken up into a half dozen five to 15 minute video lecture clips highlighting key ideas. A transcript accompanied the video, which I found helpful when I needed clarification. After each video segment there would be a short series of questions which were ungraded to help reinforce the ideas the previous segment had taught. In addition, the lessons would often have sample excel sheets to download which would help demonstrate the concepts being discussed.<\/span><\/p>\n

After completing both lessons, there were additional practice problems and supplemental resources available for further understanding. There was also an active discussion forum where teaching assistants and other classmates were available to discuss problems you were having with the course material or any questions you had. Once confident with the subject matter, each week?s class had graded homework. These assignments would build on the concepts demonstrated in lecture but with students having to set up optimizations and modifying as the problem dictated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The course moved rapidly but intelligently over a number of topics. Summarizing the course, I learned how to:<\/span><\/p>\n