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Distance Learning and Teaching for cybersecurity Programs

Distance Learning Today

Practically overnight distance learning has become the ‘new norm’ for academic institutions. Educators worldwide are figuring out what Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) means for their specific courses and subject matter for summer term and likely fall term 2020. And while the immediate remote learning requirements for pandemic mitigation will eventually recede, there is a growing awareness that online and blended learning options in Higher Education curriculum will likely be a strategic part of the post-pandemic norm.

“Every faculty member is going to be delivering education online. Every student is going to be receiving education online. And the resistance to online education is going to go away as a practical matter,” James N. Bradley, chief information officer at Texas Trinity University, wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Job opportunities in the cybersecurity field

Let’s take a specific look at higher education programs for Information Technology and the related cybersecurity discipline. For starters, they can’t graduate students fast enough to fill the existing job openings in the cybersecurity field. Even before the pandemic, there was a well-documented talent gap between the growing number of open cybersecurity jobs and skilled applicants to fill them. In November 2019, ISC2 calculated that the cyber workforce would need to increase by more than 145% to fill gaps in talent across the U.S. Cyberseek.org tracks this unique employment landscape and states that “the average cybersecurity role takes 20% longer to fill than other IT jobs in the U.S.” because employers struggle to find workers with cybersecurity-related skills.

The dynamics of this gap have probably gotten worse. Today’s stay-at-home world has cybersecurity vulnerability written all over it. Online activities have exploded with remote work access, distance learning, telemedicine, video conferencing, online shopping, gaming, media streaming, and more all happening at once….and creating a world of opportunity for threats to identity, systems and data. And, in the post-pandemic world that we are looking forward to, many of the new and unexpectedly ‘proven’ activities like distance learning and telemedicine will likely stay with us to some extent as part of the ‘new norm’.

The result is that behind the physical coronavirus crises is the shadow of a virtual cyber virus crisis. And it means that cybersecurity is quickly moving to the frontlines of mission-critical skillsets for healthcare, higher education, retail, and every employer that enabled work-from-home for the safety of their workforce. Now, more than ever, organizations and institutions need to stop thinking in terms of IF they are breached and start planning in terms of WHEN they are breached.

Does that sound ominous? It is! But buried in the dramatic shortage of cyber skills, is opportunity. Opportunity for STEM/IT focused students (high school and collegiate) to specialize in cybersecurity and find jobs upon graduation. And opportunity for higher education institutions to ramp up their cybersecurity program enrollment.

  • In March 2019, Cyber Crime Magazine reported that only 3% of U.S. Bachelor’s Degree graduates had a skill set in cybersecurity.
  • And in another 2019 report, Burning Tree Technologies learned that while federal data showed the number of postsecondary programs in key cybersecurity areas had increased 33%, the ratio of currently employed cybersecurity workers to job openings, had hardly budged since 2015. In other words, the pool of available talent has remained proportionally the same.

 

Developing the cybersecurity skills that employers are desperate for is a multi-faceted challenge. Employers want to bring in new hires who have both a strong foundation in basic security principles and concepts as well as practical job role specific skills like networking protocols, scripting, regular expressions, kill chain and network defense, etc. And maybe most importantly, employers categorize top talent as those applicants with power skills like strategic thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration.

Distance learning and the IT / cybersecurity discipline

At Circadence, we specialize in cybersecurity learning, specifically through an immersive learning platform that provides hands-on experience and strategic thinking activities for students working towards careers in the field of cybersecurity.

Today’s educators are looking for engaging student activities that teach designated core curriculum topics to meet learning objectives. And, it is equally critical to assess student comprehension of learned material and measure progress to ensure the effectiveness of the curriculum and teaching approach. These challenges can be met head-on with Circadence’s Project Ares in the online classroom. Project Ares is a browser-based learning platform specifically designed for teaching cybersecurity in a hands-on, applied manner.

It can help transform existing cybersecurity curriculum to support current distance learning challenges as well as integrate into future course design.

For cybersecurity instructors:

• The built-in learning exercises can augment existing syllabi.

• Anytime access enables flexible asynchronous delivery to support current circumstances for instructors and students.

• Self-directed student learning opportunities are supported through hints, Q&A chat bot, and session playback and review.

• Optional live observation or interaction within the exercises supports tutoring as well as assessment.

• Immersive, gamified environment sustains student engagement with scores and leaderboards to incent practice and improvement.

• Global chat enables peer-to-peer community and support for students.

Additional Distance Learning & Teaching Resources

As higher education instructors shift to deliver, proctor and advise online, we anticipate teaching strategies continuing to adapt to use new and immersive tools that enable alternative online courses to positively impact student learning now and into the future. Circadence is excited to be a part of this shift in learning and proud to partner with today’s cybersecurity educators that prepares tomorrow’s much-needed workforce of cyber defenders.

For more information, check out these resources:

• Microsoft technology helps enable remote classrooms https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/remote-learning?&ef_id=EAIaIQobChMIjrP4qvSQ6QIVlxatBh347wMJEAAYASAAEgL-VvD_BwE:G:s&OCID=AID2000043_SEM_6M11V6Kq&utm_source=google&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjrP4qvSQ6QIVlxatBh347wMJEAAYASAAEgL-VvD_BwE

• Circadence White Paper Teaching Cybersecurity Remotely: Online Learning with Project Ares https://marketing.circadence.com/acton/media/36273/whitepaper-rise-of-distance-e-learning-in-higher-education

• Project Ares Curriculum Example. Building an Immersive Cyber Curriculum with Project Ares: A use case from a public research institution in the Western U.S. https://marketing.circadence.com/acton/media/36273/immersive-cyber-curriculum-with-project-ares-use-case

• Cyberdegrees.org  provides a comprehensive directory of colleges and universities offering cybersecurity degrees, as well as a wealth of information on career paths within the cybersecurity field, security clearances, the range of professional security certifications available.

If there is one thing that this pandemic has taught us all, is that out of chaos arises opportunity: Opportunity to be better professionals, better neighbors, better defenders, and overall, better people. We hope each of you continues to stay safe and secure during this time.

Photo by Avel Chuklanov  on Unsplash

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