reinvent

Coursera’s Global Skills Report: A helpful resource for understanding the world’s most in-demand skills

On 06/21/2022, in adult learning, Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, business, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, entrepreneurship, Europe, game-changing environment, higher education, internet, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, mathematics, MBA, new media literacies, professional development, programming, reinvent, skills, society, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, technology (general), training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, web design and production, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Coursera’s Global Skills Report

Excerpt from the Executive Summary:

Here are some of our top findings:

Digital skills are the shared language of the modern economy.
Women’s participation continued to rise.
The developing world had the highest rate of learner growth.
Lower levels of internet access mean lower levels of skills proficiency.
Courses in human skills had more learners from developed countries, while those in digital skills had more from developing ones.
The U.S. held steady in its overall skills proficiency ranking—yet it lost meaningful ground in core technology and data science skills.
Europe leads the world in skills proficiency.
Proficiency in technology and data science skills varies widely across the Asia-Pacific region.
Learners used Coursera to understand the pandemic.

Shifting Skills, Moving Targets, and Remaking the Workforce — from bcg.com by Matt Sigelman, Bledi Taska, Layla O’Kane, Julia Nitschke, Rainer Strack, Jens Baier, Frank Breitling, and Ádám Kotsis; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this resource
Our analysis of more than 15 million job postings reveals the future of work.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Jobs do come and go, but even more significantly, jobs change. Day by day, skill by skill, the basic building blocks of a job are repositioned, until the role looks much different than it did just five years ago. Yet the job title—and the worker in the job—may remain the same.

But even company leaders may not realize how profoundly and rapidly the jobs throughout their business and industry are evolving. A comprehensive look at job listings from 2016 through 2021 reveals significant changes in requested skills, with new skills appearing, some existing skills disappearing, and other existing skills shifting in importance.

The challenge for employers and employees alike is to keep up—or, better yet, to get ahead of the trends.
…
Four Big Trends
We see four big trends in skill change:

- Digital skills, like technical fluency and abilities including data analysis, digital marketing, and networking, aren’t limited to jobs in IT.
- Soft skills, like verbal communication, listening, and relationship building, are needed in digital occupations.
- Visual communication has become increasingly important even outside of traditional data occupations. Experience with tools such as Tableau, MS Power BI, and Adobe Analytics is in high demand.
- Social media skills, such as experience with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Adobe Photoshop, are in demand in the current media climate.

Also from Ryan Craig, see:

How to Really Fix Higher Ed — from theatlantic.com by Ben Sasse
Rather than wiping the slate clean on student debt, Washington should take a hard look at reforming a broken system.

Excerpts:

Most young Americans never earn a college degree, and far too many of those who do are poorly served by sclerotic institutions that offer regularly overpriced degrees producing too little life transformation, too little knowledge transmission, and too little pragmatic, real-world value.
…
Far too often, higher education equates value with exclusivity, and not with outcomes. The paradigmatic schools that dominate higher-ed discussions in the pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post measure themselves by how many high-school seniors they reject, rather than by how many they successfully launch, by how much they bolster the moral and intellectual development of the underprivileged, or even by a crude utilitarian calculus such as the average earnings of their recent graduates.

Each of these changes will depend on breaking up the accreditation cartels. College presidents tell me that the accrediting system, which theoretically aims to ensure quality and to prevent scammers from tapping into federal education dollars, actually stifles programmatic innovation inside extant colleges and universities aiming to serve struggling and underprepared students in new ways.

One last item here:

Learning Should Be Like Cooking — from linkedin.com by Cali Koerner Morrison

Excerpt:

We need systems of record that are learner-owned, verifiable and travel across all types of learning recognition. 1EdTech is making great strides in this direction with the comprehensive learner record and the T3 Innovation Network with the LER. Open Skills Network and Credential Engine are making great strides to level the playing field on defining all elements of skills-based learning and credentialing. We need pathways that help guide learner-earners through their career progression so they are in a constant swirl of learning and earning, leveling up with each new achievement – from a microcredenial to a master’s degree.

DC: Nice example of how our future learning ecosystems will allow us to build our learning record from a variety of sources.https://t.co/SOHNH4yivb pic.twitter.com/iqpM1Y69Z8

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 12, 2022

From DSC:
The following items made me reflect upon the place of COVID-19 in causing the current ills within higher education — but also thinking about the ills that were present long before Covid hit us.

Key point:
We should be careful not to conveniently use COVID-19 as the scapegoat for all that’s wrong within higher education.

On the faculty/staff side of the house

The Season of Our Professorial Discontent — from chronicle.com by Paul Musgrave
The pandemic irrevocably changed the student-teacher relationship — and not for the better.

Excerpts:

As pandemic slides into endemic, it’s worth asking: Did the pandemic break something fundamental about academe? Was the spring of 2022 the end of pandemic disruptions, or the start of a new normal?
…
This time, as I delivered the lines to an audience of 30 in a course with 200 students enrolled, I was wondering whether I wanted to give a lecture ever again.

From DSC:
Regarding the first quote…several things were broken within academe long before COID-19. Re: the second quote, what should that tell us if only 30 students showed up in a class with 200 students in it?

Faculty autonomy and faculty satisfaction are being whittled away.

From DSC:
From what I can tell, that’s been happening for years within the K-12 learning ecosystem. It seems like this trend is now occurring within the higher ed learning ecosystem. (I could go off on a tangent about why we didn’t help our fellow educators within K-12 — whose “product” directly impacts those working within higher ed — but I better not. This posting is already packed with reflections.)

Below are some relevant quotes from Kevin McClure’s 5/27/22 article out at The Chronicle of Higher Education (emphasis DSC). I agree with much of what Kevin is saying here.

Don’t Blame the Pandemic for Worker Discontent
It hasn’t just been a tough two years. It’s been a tough two decades.

Excerpt:

The pandemic alone didn’t cause the low morale and turnover you might be seeing among your faculty and staff members just as the lack of personal protective equipment didn’t solely give rise to the Amazon Labor Union. Yes, today’s workers are re-evaluating their workplaces, seeking reassignment within their institutions, and in some cases resigning from jobs altogether. But they are doing so for many of the same reasons they did 20 years ago — poor working conditions.
…
So burnout isn’t just about people struggling to cope with stress; it’s about people struggling in workplaces where stress never subsides.
…
In my own interviews on morale, higher-education workers have talked about leaders who aren’t listening, low compensation, and understaffing.
…
We see our workplaces differently, and our tolerance of poor working conditions has evaporated.

On the student side of the house

“It hasn’t just been a tough two years. It’s been a tough two decades.” The same — and likely more — could be said for the student side of the house, especially in regards to the price of education and how relevant/up-to-date the content has been. As the prices of obtaining a degree have skyrocketed over the last several decades, students and parents now HAVE to ask, “What’s the Return On Investment (ROI) here? Am I gaining the skills in college that will get me hired after college?”

Again, the point I’m trying to make here is that we should be careful not to conveniently use COVID-19 as the scapegoat for all that’s wrong within higher education.

Along these lines, the following two quotes seem relevant to me from Beth McMurtrie’s (6/2/22) Teaching e-newsletter (also from The Chronicle):

I asked Walton to tell me more about the setup at his university. He said classes were fully in person but instructors were encouraged to record lectures and be highly flexible with due dates. The result: Most days he had less than 50-percent attendance, and he received a lot of last-minute emails from students who said they woke up that morning with a headache or otherwise not feeling well. A few filed documented absence requests, but not many, suggesting that these were not serious illnesses, like Covid.
…
I’ve never had more incompletes for courses than in the last two years, so signaling to students that their distribution courses are flexible and accommodating has only let them de-emphasize them even more.

There’s likely a variety of causes/possibilities here — and I’m sure that Covid-related reasons are among them. But it makes me really wonder if students don’t think that the content is all that valuable or relevant to begin with these days. Is college even worth it anymore? Why am I here in the first place? Where is the motivation coming from? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic motivation?

Perhaps it’s time to change the curriculum/content as well as the price.

Daniel S. Christian: My concerns with just maintaining the status quo (from 2009).

A graphic I created back in 2009, with Yohan Na’s assistance.

From DSC:
The items below reminded me that things aren’t looking good for higher education these days. Having a son a quarter of the way through college makes this even more relevant/personal for our family.

The Big Quit | Even tenure-line professors are leaving academe. — from chronicle.com by Joshua Doležal

Excerpts:

We have become accustomed to the exodus of graduate students, postdocs, and adjuncts, but before Covid it was still possible to see tenured and tenure-track faculty members as relatively immune from the stresses of working in higher ed. No more. A 2020 study by The Chronicle and Fidelity Investments found that more than half of all faculty members surveyed were seriously weighing options outside of higher education: either changing careers entirely or retiring early.

“If a return to normal simply means restoring the burnout conditions that the pandemic inflamed, then the rumble of faculty members leaving may build to a roar that no amount of magical thinking can explain away.”

Here’s a relevant quote from a weekly newsletter — Teaching — from The Chronicle of Higher Education (by Becky Supiano)

The bottom line? “You don’t get student success,” McClure says, “unless you have invested in faculty well-being.”

The quote is from Kevin McClure, who is “trying to get the challenges front-line faculty and staff face on the radar of more college leaders.” As primarily a former staff member, I appreciate that he’s including staff members here. Staff are important members of the academe as well.

Drop in Spring-2022 Enrollment Is Worse Than Expected — from chronicle.com by Audrey Williams June

Excerpt:

New data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center provide a final tally on enrollment for the spring of 2022 — and reveal a persistent trend: College attendance continues to decline.

Undergraduate enrollment fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier, a shortfall of more than 662,000 students. Since the pandemic began, the undergraduate student body has dropped by almost 1.4 million students.

But also in play, he said, are students who increasingly question the value of college, are wary about taking out student loans to pay for it, and who have options to join the labor market instead.

Michigan colleges experience nation’s worst spring enrollment dive, new report shows — from mlive.com by Samuel Dodge

Excerpt:

College enrollment across Michigan plummeted 15% during the spring semester this year, dragged down by a 20% hit to four-year public universities, a new report shows. Spring enrollment across all sectors dropped to 360,220 students, a decrease of more than 62,000 from 2021 to this year, according to data released Thursday, May 26, by the National Student Clearinghouse.

[Cost of Inequity] The Student Loan Crisis — from businessinsidre.com by various
How the student loan industry put a $1.7 trillion price tag on the American dream and the proposed reforms that could pay the bill.

A somewhat-related item:

The Future of Higher Education Is the Hybrid Campus — from campustechnology.com by Dr. Jeffrey R. Docking
Blending the best of face-to-face instruction with the flexibility of online learning can enhance the higher ed experience for all types of learners, lower the cost of a degree and better prepare students for the workforce.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

What Students Want
Students and families are increasingly rethinking whether a traditional college education is worth the investment, leaving higher ed leaders searching for innovative ways to showcase their school’s value and entice students. When we think about what students really want, they want more than a degree — they want skills training that will ensure a well-paying, rewarding career. In fact, 62% of college students say they would be more likely to re-enroll if their institution offered “new programs and certificates tailored to the new economy” with high-demand majors and education that connects them to employability. This makes sense since employers are continuing to find value in students developing a “broad skill base that can be applied across a range of contexts.”

But over the last several years, and after seeing the success of it at Adrian College, I’ve become convinced that the future of residential colleges is not face-to-face or online, but an intelligent blend of both modalities.

A somewhat-related item:

Navigating career turbulence — from ted.com by Adam Grant; with thanks to Deirdre Honner for this resource

Description:

Everyone’s career will hit some turbulence at some point. Instead of pushing harder against the headwinds, we’re sometimes better off tilting our rudder and charting a new course. In this episode, host Adam Grant speaks with people who have taken unusual steps to battle uncertainty, rethought their approach to finding and landing a job and reached out for help in unexpected places — as well as an expert on recessions who forecasts the future by looking to the past. Listen and subscribe to WorkLife with Adam Grant and more podcasts from the TED Audio Collective wherever you’re listening to this.

“Airbnb’s design for employees to live and work anywhere” — now apply that to a school, college, or university [Barrett]

On 05/11/2022, in Australia, blended learning, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, education, experimentation, face-to-face, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, hybrid learning, Hyflex learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, participation, platforms, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, technologies for your home, universities, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Airbnb’s design for employees to live and work anywhere — from news.airbnb.com; with thanks to Tom Barrett for this resource

Excerpt:

Airbnb is in the business of human connection above all else, and we believe that the most meaningful connections happen in person. Zoom is great for maintaining relationships, but it’s not the best way to deepen them. Additionally, some creative work and collaboration is best done when you’re in the same room. I’d like working at Airbnb to feel like you’re working at one of the most creative places on Earth, and this will only happen with some in-person collaboration time.

The right solution should combine the best of the digital world and the best of the physical world. It should have the efficiency of Zoom, while providing the meaningful human connection that only happens when people come together. We have a solution that we think combines the best of both worlds.

We’ve designed a way for you to live and work anywhere—while collaborating in a highly coordinated way, and experiencing the in-person connection that makes Airbnb special. Our design has five key features…

Now, a thought exercise on that item from Tom Barrett:

While you are there, extend the thought experiment and imagine the new policy for a school, college or university.

You can work from home or the office
You can move anywhere in the country you work in, and your compensation won’t change
You have the flexibility to travel and work around the world
We’ll meet up regularly for team gatherings, off-sites, and social events
We’ll continue to work in a highly coordinated way

From DSC:
As a reflection on this thought experiment, this graphic comes to my mind again. Teachers, professors, trainers, staff, and students can be anywhere in the world:

Learning from the living class room

One-time jailhouse lawyer creates legal jobs program for the formerly incarcerated [Reynolds]

On 04/29/2022, in active learning, adult learning, career development, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, surviving, United States, by Daniel Christian

One-time jailhouse lawyer creates legal jobs program for the formerly incarcerated — from abajournal.com by Matt Reynolds

Excerpts:

Devon Simmons, co-founder and project director of a new program helping those with past convictions find work as paralegals and other jobs in the legal profession, says there’s a wealth of untapped legal talent among formerly incarcerated people.
…
Simmons emerged from prison 15 years later. By that time, he was a product of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Prison-to-College Pipeline program and later graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.

“Once I came home, I would constantly see people unemployed who I had sat in the law library with,” Simmons says. “These individuals have legal expertise, but they’re not given the opportunity to utilize it. What if I could create a platform in which I could make that happen?”

For all the learners who have horrible, painful memories of school, I’m sorry the systems weren’t different for you. [Christian]

On 04/25/2022, in assistive technologies, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, future, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, neurodivergent/special needs, parents/guardians, participation, passions, reinvent, society, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, user experience (UX), vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

K-12 education in America is like quickly moving trains that stop for no one.

K-12 education in America is like quickly moving trains that stop for no one.

From DSC:
A family member struggles with spelling — big time. This causes her major amounts of anxiety in school.

Another family member had some learning disabilities and reflects back on school with some bad memories.

Another family member struggles with social graces and learns at a much different pace than her peers — the move to her education being (predominantly) done via homeschooling has helped significantly.

A friend of mine has Dyslexia. He recently said that school was hell for him.

Another person I know doesn’t understand his daughter’s learning disabilities — at all. He’s asking a fish to climb the tree and yells at his daughter when she doesn’t produce like the other kids do. Her school is for college-bound learners, and there’s always pressure to maintain the school’s “blue-ribbon” status (i.e., sorry if you don’t fit in…but please board the train anyway, as it’s about to depart).

These people and stories about their educations got me to reflect on all the people who went through the school systems in the United States (over the last few decades) that didn’t work well for them. In fact, not only did the systems not work well for them, they were the sources of a great deal of pain, anxiety, depression, anger, frustration, and embarrassment. Instead of being a place of wonder or joy, school was a painful, constant struggle to get through.

For those who can keep up or even excel at the pace that the trains travel at, school isn’t that much of a problem. There are likely different levels of engagement involved here, but school is manageable and it doesn’t cause nearly the stress for someone who struggles with it.

For those with learning disabilities, I’d like to apologize to you on behalf of all the people who legislated or created rigid, one-size-fits-all school systems that didn’t understand and/or meet your needs. (Why we allow legislators — who aren’t the ones on the front lines — to control so much of what happens in our school systems is beyond me.) I’d like to apologize on behalf of all of the teachers, administrators, and staff who just accept the systems as they are.

Please help us reinvent our school systems. Help us develop the future of education. Help us develop a more personalized, customized approach. For those who are working to provide that, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

To everyone working within Pre-K through 12th grade, help us offer: More voice. More choice. More control. The status quo has to go. School should not be a constant source of pain and anxiety.

Learners need: More voice. More choice. More control. -- this image was created by Daniel Christian

I Grew Up Believing I Was Dumb. A College Education Behind Bars Healed That Wound https://t.co/PsUZ2LyOxa via @MarshallProj

— Paul Czarapata (@pczarapata) April 21, 2022

Seeing the possibilities, I finally took a chance. I studied English, political science and finite math, and each class I passed deepened my confidence and self-love.

This growing self-love was key to my academic development. Growing up, I didn’t experience much real love, outside of my mother and a few family members. I most often encountered the kind of false love expressed through violence and monetary possessions. College changed the way I thought about myself and others. I worked hand-in-hand with men from all backgrounds to complete assignments, and even taught other students. Before I knew it, I was getting A’s on my essays and solving quadratic equations in math class.
…
When people question why it’s important to educate prisoners, I remind them that to see change, we must support change. We must give individuals the opportunity to see themselves as more than the harm they’ve caused, more than what was once broken within them.

Christopher Blackwell

Also relevant/see:

University Behind Bars

Hmmm…many colleges & universities keep a close eye on their peers…but who is a peer? [Christian]

On 04/20/2022, in 21st century, colleges, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, law schools, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, liberal arts, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, organizational change, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, training / L&D, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Hmmm…many colleges and universities keep a close eye on their peers and often respond with similar strategies that their peers are pursuing. But who is an organization’s peer? The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s posting below — “How a College Decides Who Its Peers Are” — stated that “there is clearly no shared definition of what constitutes a peer institution.”

Plus, I found this item especially interesting:

Harvard University selected only three peer institutions: Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. But 22 institutions, including Bowdoin, named Harvard as a peer. Bowdoin, a small, liberal-arts college with about 1,800 undergraduate students and no graduate programs, chose 98 “peers,” including the entire Ivy League and many large universities, some of which enroll more than 10,000 students. Bowdoin itself was picked by 35 institutions as a peer. All of them were small, liberal-arts colleges or universities that primarily serve undergraduates.

I have often thought that colleges and universities should care far less about what their peers are doing. Rather, they should move forward with their own solid visions, bold actions, and well-thought-through strategies — as there can be a great deal of danger and risk in the status quo.

Too many alternatives have been appearing — and will likely continue to appear — on the lifelong learning landscapes. Most likely, these new organizations will offer in-demand credentials/skills as well as the capabilities of helping people constantly reinvent themselves — with far less expensive price tags associated with these types of offerings.

How a College Decides Who Its Peers Are — from chronicle.com by Susan Poser
Questions of institutional identity are at the core of the process.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The mismatch between whom an institution chose as peers, and the colleges that reciprocated, pervades the data set. It raises the question of how institutions designate peers, which is a mystery. In some cases it is likely to be decided by someone in the Office of Institutional Research or the provost’s office in response to the Ipeds survey, while in others perhaps some process leads to a consensus among administrators. Regardless, there is clearly no shared definition of what constitutes a peer institution.

Also relevant/see:

Who Does Your College Think Its Peers Are? — from chronicle.com by Jacquelyn Elias
‘An Art and a Science’: Colleges’ Tricky Task of Selecting Peers — from chronicle.com by Audrey Williams June

Paralegal Pathways Initiative [change-center.law.columbia.edu]

On 04/18/2022, in career development, collaboration, ideas, law schools, learning ecosystem, reinvent, society, by Daniel Christian

Paralegal Pathways Initiative — from change-center.law.columbia.edu

Excerpt:

Housed at Columbia Law School, the Paralegal Pathways Initiative (PPI) aims to amplify the talents of formerly incarcerated individuals by providing skills-based legal training and connecting them with professional mentorship in preparation for careers in the legal field.

“Colleges Are Hiring. But Do People Want to Work There?” [McClure] + other changes in the K12 and higher education ecosystems

On 04/08/2022, in adjunct faculty, career development, colleges, community colleges, education reform, faculty, higher education, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, teachers, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Colleges Are Hiring. But Do People Want to Work There? — from chronicle.com by Kevin R. McClure
Higher ed used to be insulated from the whims of the labor market. No more.

Excerpts:

This perhaps comes as a surprise to some college hiring officials. For a long time, colleges have operated under the assumption that they can easily replace people. And until recently, that was true. Colleges were viewed as places where employees can enact their values, where jobs were spared the ravages of recessions, and where deep relationships can be forged with students and colleagues. When someone left a job, institutions would post the opening and often receive more than enough applicants, especially for faculty positions. Why try hard to retain someone if you can always count on a deep pool of applicants?

That rosy vision of higher education was already starting to sour prior to the pandemic. And after the last two years, it isn’t safe to assume we can field the same numbers of applicants.

That’s largely because employee morale at colleges is tanking. Some in the industry have told me it’s the lowest they’ve ever seen. There are several likely reasons for it, including low pay and frustration that administrations aren’t taking health concerns of frontline workers during the pandemic seriously enough. But perhaps the biggest cause for the drop in morale is understaffing. Higher-education workers are exhausted from years of employment rolls that aren’t just lean — they’re malnourished.

Has the Campus Workplace Changed Forever? — from chronicle.com by Megan Zahneis
College leaders are trying different strategies to adapt to a new reality.

Excerpt:

Despite hopeful signs that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, there is a growing understanding that remote and hybrid work, at least in some form, is here to stay. With the benefit of hindsight and enough time to consider things more thoughtfully, institutional leaders and academic administrators are increasingly engaging with essential questions about remote work: What is the best way to manage teams at a distance? What does it take to recruit, retain, and engage faculty and staff members? What can higher education learn from other industries that have long embraced telecommuting?

Also relevant/see:

Our Nation’s Teachers Are Hustling to Survive — from edsurge.com by Emily Tate
Nearly 1 in 5 American public school teachers work a second job outside of the classroom. Why is this their reality?

Rothrock’s story is not exceptional—at least in her line of work, in this country. If she were any other highly educated American professional, that might be different. But Rothrock is a teacher. That a teacher must work a second, part-time job on weeknights and weekends, year-round, more than 20 years into her career, in spite of a master’s degree and a modest lifestyle, is so universally accepted among her peers and colleagues in education that it barely warrants notice.

It’s (Past) Time to Redesign the Teaching Profession — from by Katie Kimbrell

Excerpts:

According to a recent Forbes article, national research found that 54% of teachers surveyed in 2021 are considering leaving the teaching profession within the next two years. More urgently, Edweek reported that 48% of teachers have considered quitting in the last 30 days.

To be clear, these numbers are cataclysmic.

Our local numbers are probably not dissimilar from elsewhere in the country: According to a regional study by LeanLab Education, teacher burnout was among the top three challenges mentioned consistently by the near 250 educators surveyed. In a recent online survey by Kansas PAC, Freedom to Learn, 78% of teachers (of 780 responses) would not recommend their profession to students, while 80% of teachers would not recommend their profession to friends and family.

When it comes to the teaching profession, what we’ve designed simply isn’t working anymore (when and if it ever did is another debate).

What Does “Learner-Centered” Higher Ed Really Look Like? Insights from Leaders at SXSW EDU — from wgulabs.org by Nicole Barbaro

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

What does the future of higher ed look like? Leaders from across the education sector dove deep into this question at the annual SXSW EDU conference that was held in Austin, Texas [last] month. During his keynote session, US Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, echoed the need for transformation by stating, “We’re closer to a reset in education than ever before. Let’s not build back something that wasn’t working for everyone.”

So, how should higher ed build back?

As a “learner-centered” ecosystem. Leaders across education agree that we must put students at the center of our design. But what does it look like in practice to be learner-centered?

A learner-centered future breaks down institutional silos and works in networks to innovate and support students. And with the ubiquity of online learning in today’s higher ed ecosystem, there’s no reason not to collaborate. “There is no possible future in which online education is not an integral part of higher ed.” affirmed Executive Director of the University Innovation Alliance, Bridget Burns during a panel discussion at SXSW EDU.

It’s (Past) Time to Redesign the Teaching Profession — from gettingsmart.com by Katie Kimbrell

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

I don’t care if you don’t have kids, if your kids are grown, or if you think for some reason you’re shielded from this threat: This crisis should concern everyone. Just like when any core institution is threatened to subsist, reinvention is not just an opportunity to do better, but an imperative to survive—both for an institution, but more importantly, for our collective humanity.

Please note that this piece is not making an argument for the concept of agency teaching (ie. please don’t send me your theses on why my idea is bad), but rather to demonstrate a point about the need to rethink the teaching profession and to treat educators as humans and critical stakeholders in the way we redesign it.
…
Asking a critical mass of past, present, and future educators these questions is where the empathy work begins—and therein the only way we will be on the right track in designing a system that works for all the humans inside of it.

Also relevant/see:

Who is Going to Teach the Kids? — from by Cameron Paterson

Key Points:

There have been profound changes in the work and workload of teachers.
During remote learning, both teachers and students discovered a new sense of autonomy.
Reprioritizing the focus of work for teachers is critical to the success of schools.

Reflections on “The University in Ruins” [Neem]

On 04/06/2022, in 21st century, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business side of he, career development, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, history, innovation, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, pace of change, reinvent, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, surviving, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The University in Ruins — from chronicle.com by Johann N. Neem
The “innovations” that promise to save higher ed are a farce.

From DSC:
First of all, I appreciated Johann Neem mentioning and/or discussing several books in one posting:

Ronald G. Musto’s The Attack on Higher Education (2021)
Arthur Levine’s and Scott J. Van Pelt’s The Great Upheaval (2021)
Bill Readings’ The University in Ruins (1996)
Ronald J. Daniels’ What Universities Owe Democracy (2021)

And as a disclosure here, I have not read those books.

Below are excerpts with some of my comments:

It’s already happening. Today, we walk among the ruins of an institution that once had a larger purpose. It’s not clear what role universities should play in society, and to what or to whom they are accountable, other than their corporate interests.

To some, that’s not a problem, at least according to Arthur Levine and Scott J. Van Pelt in The Great Upheaval (2021). They see higher education undergoing the same transformation that reshaped the music, film, and newspaper industries. Rather than place-based education overseen by tenured professors, they anticipate “the rise of anytime, anyplace, consumer-driven content and source agnostic, unbundled, personalized education paid for by subscription.”

Between Musto’s existential fears of disruption and Levine and Van Pelt’s embrace of it lies a third path. It takes the form of a wager — outlined by Ronald J. Daniels in What Universities Owe Democracy (2021) — that universities can and should continue to matter because of their importance in civic democratic life.

The article covers how the learning ecosystems within higher education have morphed from their religious roots to being an apparatus of the nation-state to then becoming a relatively independent bureaucratic system to other things and to where we are today.

Along the journey discussing these things, one of the things that caught my eye was this statement:

Hopkins, in this sense, lived up to its founding president Daniel Coit Gilman’s 19th-century aspiration that universities be places that acquire, conserve, refine, and distribute knowledge.

From DSC:
While I completely agree with that aspiration, I think more institutions of higher education could follow what John Hopkins University did with their efforts concerning the Covid-19 situation, as Neem mentioned. Generally speaking, institutions of higher education are not distributing knowledge to the levels that Gilman envisioned years ago.

In fact, these days those working within K12 are doing a whole lot better at sharing information with society than those who work within higher education are. For example, when I search Twitter for K12 educators who share content on Twitter, they are out there all over the place — and many with tens of thousands of followers. They share information with parents, families, fellow educators, students, school boards, and others. Yet this is not the case for those working in higher education. Faculty members normally:

aren’t out on Twitter
don’t blog
don’t have a podcast
don’t write for society at large. Instead, their expertise is often locked up — existing behind paywalls in academic journals. In other words, they talk to each other.

Later on…

As Daniels intuits, without a larger purpose to hold them fast, there is nothing to prevent universities from being buffeted by winds until they have lost direction. That is what Readings foresaw: Globalization liberates universities from national fetters, but at the risk of ruin.

From DSC:
While globalization may have something to do with universities becoming unanchored from their original purposes, globalization isn’t at the top of my mind when I reflect upon what’s been happening with colleges and universities these last few decades.

To see but one area of massive change, let’s take a brief look at college sports. There are now multimillion-dollar stadium projects, enormous coaches’ salaries, and numerous situations where tax-paying citizens can’t even watch sporting events without tons of advertisements being thrown into their faces every few seconds. Personally speaking, on numerous occasions, I couldn’t even access the games at all — as I wasn’t paying for the subscriptions to the appropriate providers.

Also, as another example of becoming anchored — and going back to the 1980’s — I attended Northwestern University for my undergraduate degree in Economics. While I have several wonderful lifelong friends from that experience for whom I’m deeply grateful, even back then NU had already moved far away from its motto which is based on Philippians 4:8.

Instead, please allow me to tell you what that learning community taught me and strongly encouraged me to think about:

You are only successful if you have the corner office, drive the higher numbered BMW’s, and have many people reporting to you.
If you make a lot of money.
You are supposed to compete against others vs. being in relationships with others. As but one example here, our test scores were published — by our Social Security numbers — outside our professors’ offices for all to see how we measured up to our classmates.

In fact, I’m not even sure that I would use the word “community” at all when I reflect upon my years at Northwestern. Instead, a WIIFM approach was encouraged (i.e., What’s In It For Me? where you are supposed to look out for #1). It took me years to unlearn some of those “lessons” and “learnings.”

But I realize that that’s not the case with all learning communities.

As Neem alluded to, I love the idea that an institution of higher education can — and often does — impact students’ hearts as well as minds. That was the focus at Calvin College (now Calvin University). Our oldest daughter went there and she was profoundly and positively influenced by her experiences there. In that context, students were encouraged to be in relationships with one another. There was plenty of hugging, praying for one another, etc. going on in that setting. There truly was community there.

***

Neem doesn’t think much of Levine’s and Van Pelt’s perspectives. He claims there’s nothing new in their book. He seems to discard the arguments being made about the cost of higher ed and, like many others, clings to the intellectual roots/purpose of higher ed.

While I’m not against intellect or pursuing knowledge — in fact, I’m all for it — I just have a problem when the price of doing so continues to become out of reach for soooooo many people.

Personally, I’ve tried to lower the cost of obtaining a degree within higher education for many years…but I was/we were only successful in doing so for a few years (and that was during a pilot of online-based learning). Yohan Na and I created the graphic below in 2008 for example — as I was trying to raise awareness of the dangers of the status quo:
.

.

So from a cost/access perspective, Levine’s and Van Pelt’s perspectives here sound pretty good to me. It appears to be much more affordable and realistic for the masses. Otherwise, the image/reality of the ivory tower is maintained…allowing “intellectuals” to continue to live and operate within their own sphere/hive/tribe.

Also, we need an AI-backed system of presenting which skills are needed and then how to get them. The ways things are set up today, institutions of traditional higher education have not been able to deal with the current pace of change out there.

As a final comment here…
The changing directions/purposes of institutions of higher education present a good example of why I entitled this blog Learning Ecosystems — as the systems that we use to learn and grow in are constantly morphing:

People come and go
Tools and vendors come and go
Purposes, focuses, and/or mission statements change
Our sources of information (i.e., our streams of content) come and go
Etc.

A Skills-First Blueprint to Better Job Outcomes [] Karin Kimbrough

On 04/06/2022, in adult learning, career development, change, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, surviving, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A Skills-First Blueprint to Better Job Outcomes — from linkedin.com by Karin Kimbrough
As Chief Economist at LinkedIn, I lead a team of economists and data scientists that unearth the most interesting insights from over 800M global members. Every month I’ll share a snapshot of key trends to help shed light on where the world of work is headed. This month, we’re looking at new findings around the shift to a skills-first talent ecosystem.

An excerpt from that last link/posting which is entitled “A Skills-First Blueprint for Better Job Outcomes”:

A few key findings:

Skills are Changing
The Pandemic Pulled the Future Forward
Skills-First Hiring Can Work for Both Job Seekers and Hiring Managers
Identifying Similar Skills Helps Workers Pivot to New Roles
Amidst the Great Reshuffle, Investing in Skills is a Key to Retention

Learning Ecosystems

Shifting skills, remaking the workforce, fixing higher ed, & cloud-based learner records/profiles

One-time jailhouse lawyer creates legal jobs program for the formerly incarcerated [Reynolds]

I Grew Up Believing I Was Dumb. A College Education Behind Bars Healed That Wound [Blackwell]

Hmmm…many colleges & universities keep a close eye on their peers…but who is a peer? [Christian]

Paralegal Pathways Initiative [change-center.law.columbia.edu]

A Skills-First Blueprint to Better Job Outcomes [] Karin Kimbrough

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