I wanted to share a success story based on my experience in the last 7 years teaching. Maybe it will inspire those facing challenges ahead or maybe you've already "checked out" looking at the wall of text?
In 2019, I visited my dad who taught welding at a CTE high school for several years. I never had the opportunity to leave work and see his shop. It was the last day of the school year that year. The principal pulled me aside and informed me that the IT instructor put in his letter of resignation that morning. He joked that I should apply, after hearing what I do through my dad. I asked to see the classroom and well...it was in shambles. Poor guy was teaching IT as it was 20 years ago. Most equipment was straight from the early 00s and even the 90s. Few "modern" desktops with DDR3 with poor cable management. There were piles of junk everywhere. Nothing was organized. Most of the desktops weren't in working condition.
I was content at the time. I was the Director of Technology for a private school district. I worked 15 minutes from home. Something tugged in my heart that this school needed me to turn it around. It was a dying program. Students weren't getting certified and it was in danger of being removed from the school. I was happy with the amount of funding it received. I saw that it had good "bones" to build on. My family thought I was crazy but I left my current position and decided to teach the Cisco IT Networking Academy program at the CTE school...an hour and 45 minutes away. Yes, I had to return to college. Yes, it wasn't comfortable but this was something I CHOSE to do.
Original program format
Name: Cisco IT Networking Academy
Courses: IT Essentials (S1 11th grade), NDG Linux Essentials (S2 11th grade), CCNA: Routing & Switching I (S1 12th grade), and CCNA: Routing & Switching II (S2 12th grade)
Curriculum: NONE
Max class size: 22 made up 50% merit (first choice + good grades) and 50% lottery (could be 2nd or third choice, didn't make it based on merit)
Block schedule: A day (12th grade) and B day (11th grade) schedule. 9:50AM-1:50PM every day, alternated
Certifications offered: From what I gathered, students only completed CompTIA A+ exams. It was required in their junior year.
I was told to look into Cisco NetACAD by the administration. The university we were accrediated through demanded that I take 3 courses with them in order to receive access to the Cisco curriculum. It was a face-to-face only course which required me to drive an hour and 45 minutes to work, an hour to take the course, and then 2 hours (not including traffic + tolls) home. That's asinine! She did give me temporary access to it so I could download PowerPoint but within my first hour of reading it, I found enough blatant typos and misinformation that made me want to avoid it altogether. It was NOT good.
I connected with the small amount of students I inherited (8 seniors survived + 22 incoming juniors) and established trust. The seniors failed my competency check of A+ objectives. None of them were certified or took the certification exam, despite it being required in their junior year. The juniors were still under the impression that this was an "easy A" and could sleep all day. Seniors shared that they did a lot of Packet Tracer but the app didn't work most of the time. They also made lots of CAT5e cables, repetitvely. I ended up building the plane in the air and focused on giving them real-world experience. We fixed all the desktops, rearranged the classroom, organized it in a way that it made sense, and...COVID hit. The momentum stopped. No certification tests were taken. They were all waived of taking exams that year.
Despite being an odd year, I knew exactly what I needed to do. A roadmap was developed. I formed a Program Advisory Council, shared my findings, and they supported me in fighting the state to change how my program was formatted. It took two years to get it right but we got it done! The result:
Name: IT Networking Academy (Cisco)
Courses: IT Networking I (S1 11th grade), IT Networking II (S2 11th grade), and IT Networking III (Year-long 12th grade)
Curriculum: Started with CompTIA CertMaster Learn + Labs later migrated to CompTIA TestOut Pro
Certifications offered: CompTIA A+ Core 1 for IT Networking I (optional), A+ Core 2 for IT Networking II (optional), and Security+ for IT Networking III (required to take)
In addition, these are the changes I made over the last 7 years (COVID did slow down progress a bit):
- Turned one closet to a server room with a floor-to-ceiling network rack. Installed cabinets and shelving to make it student accessible. This is where students "shop" for all of their tools, parts, consumables, peripherals, etc.
- Turned another closet into a colocation for senior equipment. There are multiple network racks. Students install their rack-mounted routers, switches, APs, and servers and access them over SSH from their desks in the classroom. Messed up? Fix it the old fashioned way by grabbing laptop and a console cable!
- Established an entire air-gapped LAN. Created a domain network for obvious reasons. Established multiple server hosts running many virtual machines for educational purposes.
- Established a simulated "WAN" using a public subnet. All senior racks connect to the WAN so they can access my classroom LAN over VPN. They can also host and port forward their own network services from their own LANs. I give students dedicated time to work on "passion projects" to learn about installing and hardening public services. They have an absolute blast with this! I also set up a "public DNS" server so they learn how proper DNS works and create domains. Every senior gets their own "WAN-hosted" Linux VM, in addition to whatever they host locally in their private subnet.
- Built new PCs over time to offer 1:1 desktops for students so they can be their own local admins on the air-gapped LAN. Now all support Windows 11.
- Installed a laptop cart that dual boot between Windows 11 and Backbox Linux. I chose Backbox because the district IPS has a cow when it detects a Kali machine on their network but doesn't care about Backbox.
- Created a number of classroom websites and systems:
- Custom developed a help desk game where students have to respond to client emails within a certain amount of time to earn points. It has a points shop where students can exchange points for "sabotages" to send to other students (such as ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, etc.) to slow them down. Students can choose the content domain when they join the game.
- Custom developed several other gamification sites that help students with more difficult content, such as: subnet math, keyboard shortcuts, commands, etc. each game has some type of leadboard to encourage friendly competitions.
- Custom developed several other "serious" learning systems, such as: a mobile device management system (simulates connected devices) with a built-in assessment system, subnet management, etc.
- Self-hosted CTFd system primarily used by seniors.
- Self-hosted help desk (based on Frappe) where I assign real tickets for students. They receive a marking period grade for their participation in their "help desk apprenticeship" for the school. I use this as a real-world training tool and coach them on professionalism and communication.
- A number of custom-created vulnerable web apps, services, and services.
- Worked with local businesses and received quality donations such as a large format printer (which I used to create custom classroom posters), 65" large format display (updated every day with content with a Raspberry Pi), Sharp copier, etc.
- Employers also partnered up so we can become a feeder program for employment.
- Periodically create red vs blue (cyber range) activities for seniors where I set up a room divider and they compete against each other (a class favorite).
- Started participating in SkillsUSA. Last year my kids earned gold in Cyber Security and Internet of Things (Smart Home) and competed at nationals!! We placed 4th overall in the nation for Cyber Security!
- Subscribed to Pear Deck to help make class lectures more engaging and Gimkit for gamified practice assessments
- Slowly developed several custom practice exams for A+ and Security+ in addition to what's offered in TestOut Pro and Practice (an option for students to purchase)
- My own "professor messer"-style study notes for all courses to compliment the textbook and to meet accommodation needs.
The result? Well...
This year
we broke another program record with 13 of 18 senior students earning their Security+ and 14 of 20 students (only 16 took the exams) earning their A+! I couldn't be more proud of my kids. It's so cool to see them get EXCITED to learn new things in class, get jobs, or get accepted to great colleges/universities. That's what gives me the fuel to keep going!! It's been an absolute blur but I guess time flies when you're having fun!! I wouldn't be able to do any of this if it wasn't for a supportive administration that truly believes in their faculty! If you have the support, the passion, and ambition, YOU can do it!
