LBCC iLearn program provides college for non-traditional students

Scott Swanson

Looking to learn more about business? Office skills or technology?

Does your boss want you to beef up the company website or Facebook presence, and you aren’t sure you’re ready for that?

Meet Jeff Flesch.

Flesch is business marketing manager for the new iLearn Online program at Linn-Benton Community College, an individual-studies program that offers any and all of the above in the form of associate degrees or certification in business administration, office technology, social media, coding and reimbursement, accounting clerk and CT scan training.

The purpose of the program, which is funded by a grant from the Department of Labor, is to give students who don’t fit more traditional modes of education a chance to earn college degrees.

Flesch explained the program to about a dozen Sweet Home Chamber of Commerce members, including local business owners and managers, Wednesday, March 23, at a Breakfast Forum at the Sweet Home Police Department Community Room.

He said students work their way through programs in modules. When they log into a class, they click on a module that presents them with the material they need to work on. They complete one course at a time and the price goes down the farther they proceed.

To start, a student pays $200 per month until he or she has completed the first course. The fee is $100 per month through the second course, then drops to $50 per month.

“The populations we think this program can serve are 26- to 27-year-olds and up,” he said.

Students range from those who want to earn degrees to others who simply want to develop a skill.

“People say, ‘I just want to get better at Excel,’” Flesch said. “You can come in and take one class, for one credit, work full-time and finish in three or four weeks.”

Others are looking for more and the advantage of the iLearn program, which is similar to offerings by other schools, such as Western Governors University, he said, is that they are flexible.

It’s not for everybody, but it works great for some students, he added.

“You have to be able to have good time management,” he said. “All the content is in a cloud (online). Everybody is doing their own thing, working at their own pace. You can slow it down to almost nothing, then you can ramp it up.”

Students progress through each course, module by module, until they finish it.

“This is competency-based. We want people to retain the information they’ve learned, not just study and take a test,” Flesch said.

Students must demonstrate basic academic competency, usually through testing, before starting. If they need work on math or writing before starting the program, they can take a class at LBCC, he said.

Classes start each week, on Wednesdays. Each student works with a “Personal Education Team” – a Navigator, who serves as a “go-to” contact when problems arise; a Content Expert, who is the faculty member for the course and is expert in the course content and can answer academic questions; and an Assessment Evaluator, a faculty member who grades work and provides feedback.

Students have to can do it entirely on their own, from start to finish, Flesch said. They do not interact with other students, “which has goods and challenges,” he added, noting that administrators are considering “boards” or other ways to allow students to communicate with each other.

“Admission to completion, they never have to come to campus. One of our students is in Indonesia.”

Online education is “exploding” at Oregon State University, he noted, which now offers 47 college degrees online.

Flesch said students cannot be in Ilearn and take regular LBCC classes, but if the online education isn’t working, they can make a switch. Completed courses are transferable to all public institutions in Oregon, he said.

The program started in January of last year and initially was aiming for 1,000 students through the grant’s lifespan, March 2017. So far, 73 students have enrolled and 10 have completed degrees.

“We’ve doubled the student base in the last three months,” said Flesch, an OSU graduate student who started working with iLearn in December. “We’re looking at over 250 by next year.

“Though we were aiming for 1,000 students, we’re doing things in the grant that we’re supposed to be doing. If we can keep the current growth rate, we’re hoping the college can continue this.”

The fact that the program doesn’t offer financial aid, which, Flesch said, “doesn’t fit very well, since this is non-structured,” is a difficulty. He said the grant keeps the costs down, but the current tuition will be re-evaluated in June of this year.

“We’re not sure after that,” he said, but “if we don’t price this program appropriately for this population, we’ll kill it.”

After Wednesday’s presentation in Sweet Home, he said, he was heading to central Oregon for another.

Firms such as Target, Oregon Freeze-Dry and Entek have shown interest, he said.

“We’re trying to work these kind of strategic connections with employers.

“The bottom line is we want people to be successful, whether they complete one class or the entire program.”

iLearn at

LBCC

visit lbilearn.linnbenton.edu

or contact Jeff Flesch at (928) 221-8929 or [email protected] or Admissions Specialist Amber Vore at (541) 917-4887 or [email protected].

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