Building Digital Emotional Intelligence with Chad McKenzie and Brittany Hochstaetter

Helping students succeed in the workplace is about more than just hard skills. It’s about helping them understand how to be successful in a corporate environment, how to interact and communicate with others. But how can you give students the interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence they need to succeed, particularly in today’s digital workplace? Chad McKenzie and Brittany Hochstaetter have collaborated on that very topic. 

Chad McKenzie is an Associate Professor in the Information Technology division at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh and has 17 years of teaching experience within the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS). Chad’s teaching style focuses on fostering relationships with his students and creating learning environments, both virtual and seated, that are engaging, positive, and personalized.

Brittany is an experienced Professor of Communication with over 15 years of experience in higher education. Like Chad, she’s currently sharing her gifts and efforts with students at Wake Technical Community College. She’s skilled in research, educational leadership, adult education, curriculum development, soft-skills training, administrative processes, and program development.

In this episode, we talked with Chad and Brittany about digital emotional intelligence, and why it’s a focus at Wake Technical Community College. Together they share their experience in pioneering a new communication program. We discuss what they’ve learned, and how educators can successfully teach digital emotional intelligence in their classroom. 

Interested in learning more about digital emotional intelligence? Here are some of the resources that Brittany and Chad mentioned during the episode. 

Community College Daily Article: https://www.ccdaily.com/2024/01/between-us/ 

Inquisitive Culture Article: https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Six-reasons-successful-leaders-love-questions 

Employability Framework: https://cte.ed.gov/initiatives/employability-skills-framework 

Rich Skill Descriptors: https://www.openskillsnetwork.org/rsd. 

Get other ideas for your classroom on our blog: https://certiport.pearsonvue.com/blog. 

Connect with your fellow educators, like Chad and Brittany, in our CERTIFIED Educator Community here: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8958289/.

Don't miss your chance to register for our annual CERTIFIED Educator's Conference at https://certified.certiport.com/.