lifelong learning

It’s the dawning of a new day in the job market. Here’s what that means for higher ed — from edsurge.com by Sean Gallagher

Excerpts:

As we enter a recession, many experts believe that the unemployment rate will spike well into the double digits—to 15 percent according to Goldman Sachs, or as high as 32 percent according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Whatever the exact figure, we’ve gone quickly from nearly full employment to tens of millions of Americans being out of work in a transformative “100-year flood.” Hopefully, this economic disruption will be as short as possible —but a shift of this magnitude will have both immediate and long-lasting implications for the higher education ecosystem in addition to the world of work itself.
…
According to past opinion polls we’ve conducted at Northeastern University, American workers recognize that lifelong learning is critical to staying prepared for these ongoing technology-related changes in the job market. Upskilling workers to compete in a more technology-driven job market—and developing human skills to augment or work alongside smart machines—is now even more of an imperative.

What jobs employers will be hiring for—and what professional programs learners will be interested in pursuing—will also inevitably be reshaped.

Growth-Minded Pivot to Online Teaching— from scholarlyteacher.com by Kathryn Smith and Todd Zakrajsek

Excerpt:

What is essential when one starts to teach in an unfamiliar arena is to keep an open mind, be open to change, and expect some mistakes.

Now is the perfect time to embrace a growth mindset regarding teaching online. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, states, “… growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”

Having this growth mindset allows for a different definition of success, and that definition can change daily. Right now, you are likely in a position that requires you to reassess your educational practices, your teaching, and your content delivery method. You are facing challenges in learning a new skill set and an opportunity to model for your students how to grow as well.

Discussion Question:
When a pandemic arrives, few people are asked how they would like to proceed. Online learning was a global health decision. When you first started to think about moving your courses online, did your first inclination feel more growth minded or fix minded? Explain.

2020 Tech Trends Report [Future Today Institute]

On 03/18/2020, in 21st century, 3D, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, Blockchain, bots, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, education, global / globalization, ideas, India, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, media/film, memory, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, platforms, science, smart classrooms, society, STEAM-related, strategy, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, TVs, United States, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Key takeaways of this report:

Welcome to the Synthetic Decade.
You’ll soon have augmented hearing and sight.
A.I.-as-a-Service and Data-as-a-Service will reshape business.
China has created a new world order.
Home and office automation is nearing the mainstream.
Everyone alive today is being scored.
We’ve traded FOMO for abject fear.
It’s the end of forgetting.
Our new trust economy is being formed.

My wife sent me this video from John Bennett, a math teacher. This was posted to YouTube back on 11/8/11.

In fact, if it were up to me, I’d would no longer require math to be taught…in middle school and high school.

NOTES:

300 million people in the U.S. (as John mentioned back in October 2011)
- 1.5 million engineers
- 1/2 of a percent; and you can add another 1/2 of a percent for other kinds of jobs that require that kind of math
- That leaves 99% of us in the United States who don’t use what we learned about in middle school and high school math classes. But the problem is, math has caused major stress for people in the last 40 years.
John Bennett had some major cognitive dissonance to the reasons WHY he was suggesting his students know the math concepts that he was trying to relay.
He came to ask, “When do most of us use math in real life?”
- Money. Financial stuff. Balancing checkbook. Tipping. Cooking and carpentry.
Why are we still teaching algebra? Because it teaches us about inductive and deductive reasoning. Math helps us develop that kind of reasoning.
So a better plan would be to:
- Let people who want to take math in middle school and high school take it.
- For the rest of the students, provide strategy games and logic puzzles that help develop those cognitive reasoning skills.

From DSC:
When this math teacher meets people out in society, people confess how much stress math brought to them in school….and they’re aren’t joking.

Given that we are all required to be lifelong learners these days, I love what John Bennett is saying here…because we really aren’t serving society at large by requiring math be taught in middle school and high school.

It causes stress and very negative learning experiences for many people.
We don’t use it. (By the way, I could plug and chug ok, but I had no idea what I was doing. No real understanding. I haven’t used algebra and/or calculus since my youth.)

What does it take to change our curricula like that?! Is it possible? I sure hope so.

An analysis of the value of the ways of learning at work — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

However, I think the most interesting profile of them all is for those who are in non-salaried/freelance positions in the workplace (8%). These people still highly value learning from the daily work, but for them learning from professional networking and access to external resources and blogs and feeds is much more important to them than through internal resources and courses. Interestingly, though conferences are valued less than the average profile – which is probably due to cost and the more significant fact that they can learn more efficiently in other ways.

I believe this is the profile that is going to become more and more relevant and important as the work environment changes, where there are no jobs for life and everyone needs to take responsibility for their own learning and development.

[Podcast] Strategy Matters | Elliott Masie on where we’re headed

On 03/06/2020, in adult learning, business, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, ideas, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, podcasting, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Strategy Matters | Elliott Masie on where we’re headed — from performancematters.podbean.com by Bob Mosher and Elliott Masie
Listen as Bob Mosher and Elliott Masie discuss how learning is changing and what suggestions Elliott gave to two different airlines.

#corporatelearning #training #L&D
#strategy #learning #everydaylearning

How online education went from teaching reform to economic necessity for colleges — from edsurge.com by Robert Ubell

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

When online was first introduced as a pedagogical advance, faculty members often rose up against it—or more often, just ignored it, the most devastating form of resistance. If it weren’t for economic necessity, online might not have grown to the force it has today—these days a third of the nation’s higher ed students take courses online.
…
Millions of working adults must turn to digital degrees to improve their employability in a post-industrial economy that demands higher-level skills than on the assembly line. Corporations are being pressed to find agile, high-tech workers for their digital processes and products. Powerful new digital-recruitment techniques now make massive global markets open to any college with deep enough pockets.

From DSC:
The market will decide how colleges and universities will change — and which ones will survive. Presidents, provosts, members of administration, board members, and faculty members do not control this anymore (if they ever did).

How higher education can adapt to the future of work [Jahanian]

On 03/06/2020, in analytics, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, biology, business, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, curriculum, data related items, design, digital learning, economics, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, personalized/customized learning, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

How higher education can adapt to the future of work — from weforum.org by Farnam Jahanian, President, Carnegie Mellon University; with thanks to Evan Kirstel for sharing this here

Excerpts:

Embrace the T-shaped approach to knowledge
The broad set of skills needed by tomorrow’s workforce also affects our approach to educational structure. At Carnegie Mellon University—like many other institutions—we have been making disciplinary boundaries much more porous and have launched programmes at the edges and intersections of traditional fields, such as behavioral economics, computational biology, and the nexus of design, arts, and technology. We believe this approach prepares our students for a future where thinking and working across boundaries will be vital. The value of combining both breadth and depth in higher education has also led to many universities embracing “T-shaped” teaching and learning philosophies, in which vertical (deep disciplinary) expertise is combined with horizontal (cross-cutting) knowledge.
…
Invest in personalised, technology-enhanced learning
The demand for more highly skilled workers continues to grow. Recent analysis of U.S. data by The Wall Street Journal found that more than 40% of manufacturing workers now have a college degree. By 2022, manufacturers are projected to employ more college graduates than workers with a high-school education or less. Technology-enhanced learning can help us keep up with demand and offer pathways for the existing workforce to gain new skills. AI-based learning tools developed in the past decade have incredible potential to personalise education, enhance college readiness and access, and improve educational outcomes. And perhaps most importantly, technology-enhanced learning has the compelling potential to narrow socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps among students.

The rapid pace of today’s advances requires a more comprehensive workforce and education strategy across a spectrum of measures, including policy, access, programmes and outreach. The private sector, government, educators and policy-makers must work together to deliver multiple pathways to opportunity for young people looking for their first foothold in the job market, as well as to re-skill and up-skill workers striving to maintain their place in the workforce.

How innovations in voice technology are reshaping education [Lee]

On 03/06/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, internet, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, podcasting, productivity / tips and tricks, smart classrooms, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, trends, TVs, United States, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

How innovations in voice technology are reshaping education — from edsurge.com by Diana Lee
Voice is the most accessible form you can think of when you think about any interface. In education, it’s already started to take off.

It could be basic questions about, “Am I taking a class to become X?” or “How strong are my skills relative to other people?” An assistant can help with that. It could potentially be a coach, something that follows you the rest of your life for education. I’m excited about that. People that can’t normally get access to this kind of information will get access to it. That’s the future.

From DSC:
The use of voice will likely be a piece of a next-generation learning platform.

Healthy looks different on every body...and learning looks different with every mind.

From DSC:
What I mean by this is this:

While I certainly agree that research has produced excellent, proven, effective pedagogies that work with many students (the majority even), the fact is, learning is messy. When a child walks into a classroom, there isn’t even one other child with the exact same neural situation.

Nor is there even one other student with the exact same experiences, background, passions, motivations, interests, etc. I’ve experienced this with our daughter who isn’t a part of the 80% that the typical education train addresses. Look out if you are part of the 10% of either side of the bell curve! As your learning experiences are too costly to address and likely won’t be addressed in many cases.

All that said, I still agree that the teaching and learning strategies are still highly relevant across the masses. My point is that there is still a lot of diversity out there. They say that learning is messy for a reason. If you doubt that, go sit in on an IEP sometime.

Play is disappearing from kindergarten. It’s hurting kids. — from edsurge.com by Joe Martin

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In an increasing number of schools, teachers of very young students are pressured to pack every moment of the day with structured, academically rigorous tasks. One recent whitepaper linked the practice to preparing kids for the long road of schooling ahead, in which progress is measured through standardized testing starting in third grade.

Friedrich Froebel, a pedagogue of modern education, coined the term “kindergarten” in 1840 after recognizing the importance of play in the development of young children. Inspired by the idea of a garden, he designed a classroom where the teacher presented children with objects, which they were allowed to play with in any way they could imagine. When they lost interest in one object, they would be presented with a new one to spark curiosity and creativity. Children were encouraged to grow and flourish in this free form, play-based environment.

From DSC:
Given that we are all into a lifelong learning situation now, I vote for more importance being placed on whether someone enjoyed their learning experience. That said, I know there is struggle in learning…and learning in the struggle. But we focus so much on grades and standardized testing. This robs the joy from the teaching and learning environment — for the teachers as well as for the kids.

Also see:

Why aren’t we paying early childhood educators what they’re worth? — from edsurge.com by Rhian Evans Allvin

#heutagogy For those with some time to spare, here is my Keynote at the SOTEL Symposium in Auckland a couple of weeks ago. https://t.co/5xj9Km2q3s

— Stewart Hase (@stewarthase) February 29, 2020

Notes from Stewart Hase’s keynote (Feb 2020) — with thanks to Dr. Lisa Marie Blaschke in Germany for her Tweet on this

The commodification of education – turns out sausages
or
Are we creating more Greta Thunbergs?

Creating learning experiences where people are not sausages. Policymakers don’t get it. Practitioners do.

~11:00 mark –> Learner agency; have control over what they can learn about (inserted graphic from DSC below)

Heutagogy (self-determined learning)

…the learner is a partner (agent) in designing and realizing their own learning (Hase & Kenyon, 2000)

PAH continuum – Pedagogy –> Andragogy –> Heutagogy

Hobby – learned to do it but didn’t go to school for it. How did you go about learning it?

Listened to radio, watched YouTube videos, watched other people, trial and error, repeated activity, conversations/reflections/group learning, read books, break things down into smaller parts, seek out a mentor, exploring, testing hypothesis, fail, get stuck and find a way through

Kids know how to do heutagogy – very natural; self-determined learning.

~21:45 To what extent do we incorporate heutagogy into our classrooms?

Context and experience – the neurons you bring to the learning table
Competence and capability
Negotiated learning; let the learner contextualize stuff for you
Experiential learning
Flexible assessment
Chunking the learning
Chunk the assessment
Flipped classroom
Project-based learning

The learning leader: New skills

Happy with ambiguity – have to give up control and power
Have to trust people
Relationship oriented
Process not content oriented
Coach and guide
Scientist
Facilitator

IT career goals 2020: Most-wanted technology and core skills [Rudder]

On 02/20/2020, in 21st century, career development, change, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, platforms, professional development, programming, student-related, technology (general), training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

IT career goals 2020: Most-wanted technology and core skills — from enterprisersproject.com by Carla Rudder |
What are the top technology and core skills IT professionals should explore now to advance their careers in the years ahead? Recruiters and tech execs speak

Excerpt:

If you are in IT, it’s wise to check in regularly on career progress – because staying still for too long could quickly lead to falling behind.

“You should be constantly evaluating whether you have the necessary skills to remain relevant and get ahead, and whether your career progression is aligning with your own goals and aspirations,” says Jim Johnson, senior vice president of Robert Half Technology.

If you are in IT, it’s wise to check in regularly on career progress – because staying still for too long could quickly lead to falling behind.

From DSC:
Especially for students/grads pursuing a tech-related career: Be sure you know what you’re getting into. Developing and enhancing your learning ecosystems are key things to do — throughout your career! #LifelongLearning.

The 5 top tech skills companies want in new hires right now — from fortune.com by Anne Fisher; with thanks to Ryan Craig for his relaying this resource

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Tim Tully agrees. Chief technology officer at data giant Splunk—whose clients number 92 of the Fortune 100—Tully says that the most important trait IT job candidates need now is “a strong desire to learn.” It might be too broad of a requirement, but consider Tully’s own list of the five most essential tech skills now:

1. Real-time data management
2. Design thinking
3. App development
4. A.I. and machine learning
5. A composite of the first four skills

From DSC:
I’m especially posting this for students who are considering a tech-related career. If that’s you, Tim’s words ring true — you must have a strong desire to learn. And I would add, to keep learning and to keep learning and to keep learning…

If you are in IT, it’s wise to check in regularly on career progress – because staying still for too long could quickly lead to falling behind. (source)

Also, given the pace of change and today’s current marketplace, you need to be ready to be let go and take a right turn (i.e., be flexible and adaptable). You need to have a healthy learning ecosystem built up and maintained — one that will support you over the long haul. Heutagogy comes into play here. And at least for me, prayer helps greatly here too — as one can easily put one’s eggs into the wrong basket(s) when we’re talking about tech-related jobs.

And for you applying for jobs, don’t get discouraged by those organizations/people who are looking for those “purple unicorns” that Ryan Craig talks about in his Gap Letter Volume II, #4 (i.e., the perfect candidate who meets a ridiculously long list of requirements for the job).

Also see:

Below is a relevant excerpt from that report:

Optimal Video Length for Student Engagement — from blog.edx.org by Candace Hazlett and Philip Guo

Excerpt:

In this first post, I’ll share some preliminary results about video usage, obtained from initial analyses of a few edX math and science courses. Unsurprisingly, students engaged more with shorter videos. Traditional in-person lectures usually last an hour, but students have much shorter attention spans when watching educational videos online. The graph below shows median engagement times versus video length, aggregated over several million video watching sessions:

From DSC:
If you have access to a tool like Canvas Studio, then you can probably extend the length of your videos if you are interspersing your videos with a healthy dose of interactivity — i.e., inserting quiz questions every few minutes.

Learning Ecosystems

It’s the dawning of a new day in the job market. Here’s what that means for higher ed [Gallagher]

How online education went from teaching reform to economic necessity for colleges [Ubell]

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