By Kent Yang | Staff Writer
As part of the ongoing workforce development expansion at local community colleges, I had the incredible opportunity to team up with my classmate and fellow Computer Information Systems (CIS) major, Kourtney Tibbets, to serve as instructors for the “IT for Healthcare” course at Greenfield Community College, hand-picked by Dr. Gary Ackerman. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Ackerman, he serves as an adjunct Professor at Mount Wachusett Community College and teaches in the CIS department. Outside of MWCC, Dr. Ackerman is the Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation at Greenfield Community College.
The “IT for Healthcare” course is a six-week program with a total of 80 hours designed to teach and prepare students for the CompTIA IT Fundamentals certification. Dr. Ackerman shared, “We looked at several options for industry credentials and decided on the CompTIA IT Fundamentals (ITF+) as the best option. This decision came after consulting with area healthcare managers to identify their needs.”
The first cohort of the “IT for Healthcare” workshops took place in spring 2024, with Dr. Ackerman leading the initial session. However, due to scheduling conflicts, he was unable to teach the fall cohort; as a result, the workforce development team at GCC decided to recruit three IT professionals to take on the teaching responsibilities—two students from Mount Wachusett Community College and Edward Patenaude, an IT professional for a company based in Spofford, NH.
Dr. Ackerman shared that he thought of Kourtney and I right away, saying, “I knew [you] both had experience working in the field, and I had seen firsthand the quality of [your] work.”
When Dr. Ackerman chose me for this opportunity, I admittedly had mixed feelings. There were two reasons for this. First, although I work in IT, I am part of the small percentage of IT professionals who are self-taught. My position as a System Administrator means I’m technically levels above the fundamentals I’d be teaching, yet I couldn’t shake the question: How confident am I? Adding to that, public speaking and teaching were never my strong suits—the idea of standing in front of a classroom was nerve-wracking. But then I thought, if someone like Dr. Ackerman sees potential in me, I’ll give it my best! So, I took the leap.
Going over the course material, I was relieved to find that I knew and understood the content. Surprisingly, the real challenge wasn’t the teaching itself—it was the preparation for those hour-and-a-half, lecture-based PowerPoint presentations on our assigned teaching days, usually a Tuesday or Thursday, or the four-hour in-person classes on Saturdays. For my first class, between prepping the extemporaneous speech and building my first PowerPoint, I spent a solid four hours just preparing. I have a newfound respect for teachers and professors everywhere.
In addition to teaching the actual hardware session, I was the primary instructor for a four-hour lab focused on hardware and helped out during another four-hour session covering software, cloud computing, databases, and programming. My classmate Kourtney volunteered to teach the remote sessions held every Tuesday and Thursday.
Kourtney shared with me her enthusiasm for teaching, and her hope for the future: “I have always felt that inner desire to help others through the learning process. I was extremely honored and flattered when I was recommended to participate in this learning workshop to help others develop a foundation in information technology in healthcare. It is also extremely rewarding to be able to share my experiences and provide real world context which helps make concepts meaningful and assist in the learning process. My hope is this is only the start of something great!”
Dr. Ackerman has been supportive in providing regular feedback throughout the experience, even stating, “They have been fantastic additions to the instructional team, and feedback from our learners suggests they have been well-organized and prepared, which is essential to good teaching.”
CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, is a non-profit that offers IT certifications recognized throughout the industry. Following the success of programs like GCC’s, Mount Wachusett Community College is rightfully looking to add more IT courses to their workforce development catalog for IT fields. This could open doors for more student teaching opportunities if the requirements are met.
Allowing students to teach with faculty support is empowering. It allows students to gain invaluable teaching experiences by bridging the gap between academic knowledge and real-world application.
Balancing full-time work on top of full-time school, along with this role, was not easy, but I’m glad I did it, and I’d highly recommend other students take opportunities like these if they get the chance. By the end of the course, I found the entire experience so rewarding—I felt like I had made a difference. I’m still amazed at what I’ve accomplished—being the first in my family to teach at a college and breaking generational barriers along the way.
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