Umar: So the problem was your VSET client was out of date.

Umar: So we had to go in and–

Teacher: Because we have the experiential learning program, we see students building their confidence level before they’re out of high school. Not only do they have the educational background, but they have the hands on background, and that really helps them when they apply for jobs, because employers are usually looking for somebody who has the knowledge, but also the ability to implement that knowledge.

Umar: You’re good to go.

Student: Thank you.

Umar: You’re welcome.

Jordan: So the school’s mission is to prepare students with twenty-first century skills to enter the twenty-first century economy. Our goal is to send students out, not only college ready but career ready.

Chrys: So the IT pathway teaches you basically anything you could want to know in computers. So we have hardware, we have operating systems, cyber security, plus experiential learning. It’s almost like doing an internship with the school.

Umar: The technology assistance center, it’s basically run like many IT departments. Students, faculty, they’ll submit a ticket and then we’ll go in and try to help them resolve the problem.

Jordan: Chrys, there are two tickets. Let’s go grab one of them and we’ll get that updated.

The students work from the oldest ticket to the newest ticket and take on the tickets, even if they’re especially challenging, or if they don’t know how to answer them, because that’s how we make the connection between the course content and how it actually applies in the real world.

Chrys: Well, I’m going to go look at this and see what’s up with it, okay?

Student: Okay.

Chrys: It’s all a matter of figuring out just what that problem is, and if there’s anything else that’s contributing to it, which is why it’s so fun to work in the IT office, because it’s a really big puzzle. You never know exactly what you’re going to run into. So the ticket itself said that the screen wasn’t working, and that the USB ports weren’t working. I kind of think of it as triage. What’s going to be the first thing that I can do that’s going to help me assess the problem?

Yep, broken screen. Two–

There’s a ribbon cable that attaches to the screen piece. You take that out.

Jordan: Chrys, are you all right?

Chrys: Mm-hmm, yep. Going to see if reseating it works, and if not, we’ll replace it. May it rest in peace.

So what I have to do when I’m passing off a machine, is I can put in notes on whatever I’ve done on it.

All right, Anthony. So I’ve already transferred this ticket over to you. It’s got a dead screen. I brought over this one. It’s a cannibal machine, so it should hopefully have–

Jordan: We have about twenty-five tickets on an average day, some days up to fifty, but what’s really cool is, we’re able to keep our response times to same day, making sure that there’s limited interruption to the resources students and teachers have.

Jessica: Our students know our computers, they know our programs, and so they’re able to troubleshoot really successfully.

Jordan: One part of the grade is their professionalism. So how do they interact with teachers? How do they interact with students?

What I want you to see here is this phrase. Like someone could view that as, well, you’re just telling me that I’m not smart enough to fix the issue. We want to try to keep it as professional as we can.

Student: Got you.

Jordan: Okay?

At the end of the school year, they take a certification exam and we have found that the combination of learning that knowledge and applying it to what they do here has really improved scores for our students as they pass certs every year.

Jessica: Our students are getting the chance to not only utilize their skills in computer science, but really getting those real world skills, communication skills, problem solving, thinking on their feet, collaborating. So they’re able to go out with a really wonderful resume. It’s a great application for our philosophy.

Chrys: The experiential learning program has actually landed me a new job as a Geek Squad consultation agent with Best Buy. I’m currently in training to become certified, which is so similar to the coursework that I’m doing here at school. It’s really helping me with my professional life as much as it’s helping me in my personal and academic life.

We got the admin password put back in. Should be working okay for you. If you have any more trouble with it, just let us know, okay?

Student: All right, thanks.

Chrys: No problem.

Schools That Work

Dayton Regional STEM School