Rubin Unveils Aspire, Career Exploration Platform with Focus on Employability Skills
It began as live webinars through Zoom.
Nearly two years after the Rubin Dream Job Series (formerly Virtual Internship Series) launched in Zoom, the Rubin team has amassed 50+ conversations with professionals across fields like STEM, health care, marketing, sports, law and more. See all recordings here.
What makes the Dream Job webinars unique is that we focus on the nature of the job (ex: sports agent) and the importance of employability skills on the job (ex: how to engage with clients and coworkers).
Through a survey of teachers who regularly attend our webinars, one dominant theme surfaced. The webinars are excellent for career exploration, the teachers said, but the recordings (45 minutes, on average) are too long to replay in class.
Enter: Aspire.
We heard the feedback loud and clear, and we have delivered on it. Introducing Aspire, Rubin’s new career exploration library, available as an integrated, single sign-on resource for your LMS.
We took the full-length Dream Job conversations and identified four clips (2-3 minutes in length) from each one that we believe are the most essential moments from the broader interview.
Sample Aspire video from our conversation with a lab technician:
Across our 50+ Dream Job conversations, we hand-selected more than 200 videos clips and support each clip with a set of discussion questions (over 500 discussion questions available).
The result is a comprehensive archive that features “best of” moments from top professionals along with classroom materials to bring the conversations to life with your students. Each job (ex: E.R. nurse) comes with a certificate to allow students to show completion and an understanding of the job.
“Aspire is a resource we didn’t know we were building all along,” said Alexis Kruemcke, an implementation specialist at Rubin and the project lead for Aspire. “We had already spoken live with so many business professionals and, from that content, we created high-quality, on-demand videos in 5, 10 and 15-minute time windows.”
Aspire is available as modules in Canvas, folders in Schoology, a series of links in a Google Doc and any other way you need to pull the exploration videos in.
What’s more, the Rubin team plans to add 1-2 new occupations each month at the conclusion of every new, free Dream Job webinar hosted in Zoom.
“As soon as we conclude the Dream Job webinar, we will pluck out the top moments and add them to the Aspire library,” said Kruemcke. “Aspire will continue to grow and feature unique and innovative jobs across the CTE landscape.”
Aspire is priced as a site or district-license tool. It’s appropriate for grades K-12, and the videos feature sign language and closed captions.
Free trials of Aspire are available. Email Chelsea Caputo, national sales manager, at chelsea@rubineducation.com to schedule the trial and see Aspire for yourself!
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