Metropolitan Community College

In 2015 Metropolitan Community College’s (MCC Nebraska) Workforce Innovation Division began using WIDS to develop IT courses. These courses became part of a PROTO Grant (Providing Realistic Onramps to Technology Occupations) designed to increase the numbers of students majoring in IT programs by reaching out to student populations that might not readily consider IT careers. Courses developed in WIDS include: Intro to IT, Introduction to Prototype Design, Robotic Concepts in Prototyping, and The Internet of Things.

IT courses were also developed in WIDS as part of a NSF Automate! Grant designed to make IT careers accessible for more students by contextualizing abstract IT concepts within a Building Automation Systems environment.  

As the use of WIDS has expanded to encompass design of many credit and non-credit courses in the Workforce Innovation Division, the division has used nearly every course development feature available in WIDS, from identifying competencies, to identifying the intelligences involved, and storing instructor-created materials.  The focus on competency-based learning in WIDS is one of the most valuable aspects of WIDS.

According to Instructional Systems Designer Kim L. Whiteside, “The ability to align every aspect of the instructional design process to industry standards has been invaluable to the instructors of courses and workshops, our students, and our industry partners.”