skills

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.

“…employing the AI contextualization engine as the librarian.” [Bernhardt]

On 06/14/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, change, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, skills, tools, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Boost Usability of Libraries & Knowledge Hubs with Automation — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Markus Bernhardt

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Our article series looks at the top three areas where we see automation and AI revolutionizing the way in which successful L&D teams work: Asset libraries and knowledge hubs; hyper-personalized, truly adaptive learning; and capability mapping. This article examines the impact of AI and automation on maintaining asset libraries and knowledge hubs.
…
Thus, the contextualization engine becomes a powerful content management tool. It is also easy to use and requires no particular subject matter knowledge of the user; the librarian who has read everything does that for the user. And this works, of course, with articles, slide decks, audio, video, and even VR/AR content, and basically any file type.

Assets can be mapped to competencies, skills, learning objectives, departments, the requirements of a specific course or workshop, or to the horizontals and verticals of an organization’s internal restructuring model. And this takes place within seconds and minutes, and at scale.

With the ability to map content as well as practice exercises, questions, and assessments automatically into each concept’s complexity tree, it is now possible to use automation and AI to deliver adaptive and truly personalized learning content and learning paths.

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

What I Learned When Visiting a Colleague’s Hybrid Class [Stachowiak]

On 06/12/2022, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, faculty, higher education, hybrid learning, Hyflex learning, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, pedagogy, skills, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

What I Learned When Visiting a Colleague’s Hybrid Class — from edsurge.com by Bonni Stachowiak (Columnist)

Excerpt:

Though I usually use this space to offer answers to teaching advice questions from professors, I wanted to try something different. So for my next few installments, I’m writing letters to people who have exemplified what it means to be an effective teacher. This column, the first in the series, is to my friend and colleague, Elizabeth Powell. Her discipline is psychology and she invited me to come observe one of her final classes at our university.

GreenLight Means Go: Where Learner and Employment Records Are Headed — from gettingsmart.com by Getting Smart Staff

Excerpt:

New solutions present a unique solution to these challenges by providing a user-controlled technology to store, share, search, and match acquired competency with opportunity. One of the key players in this space is GreenLight Credentials, a frictionless, user-controlled talent search and credential-communicator that addresses these issues. On the outbound side, institutions and their learners can store any type of verified record including transcripts, credentials, badges, or other documentation of learning. These learning experiences are then translated into data – competencies, skills, interests, and accomplishments that are then matched with scholarship, university and employment opportunities. Universities and employers can join the network to discover and connect with prospective students or employees.

The vast majority of students who graduate from high school in the United States typically have their learning diluted to a single one-page transcript that lists courses and grades – and often a GPA.
…
What young people need now are repetitions in design thinking – to repeatedly find, frame, address complex problems and deliver value to a community.

— Getting Smart Staff

Also relevant/see from Getting Smart:

Innovating Together: the Geopolitical and Educational Path Forward — by Tom Vander Ark

Key Points

The new mission of school is cultivating curiosity, purpose and problem solving by inviting learners into real world challenges in diverse teams using smart tools.
The path forward is innovating together.

The VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) is now hyper-connected (VUCAH).

Also relevant/see:

Design Thinking: Understanding the Process — from linkedin.com by Chris Nodder

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.

The DNA of a strong learning culture [Collins]

On 06/02/2022, in business, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, culture, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, pace of change, skills, staying relevant, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The DNA of a strong learning culture — from chieflearningofficer.com by Stella Collins
How is the learning culture where you work now? What’s stayed the same? What’s changed?

Excerpt:

In this article, I will explore real stories through the lens of the DNA for an effective learning culture and discover practical examples you can apply in your own organization.

They recognized every single person in the business needs to learn, from the CEO to the most junior recruit. Everyone is a learner when “the times they are a-changin’.”

When people talk about changed behaviors, upskilling or knowledge acquisition, what they really mean, at a fundamental level, are changes to the structure, chemistry and function of our brain. These become our perceptions, memories, behaviors, habits and skills. When you don’t know any of the science, your training interventions are more likely to be hit and miss. Your training can become much more effective and armed with some proven tools to drive attention, build memories and create new habits.

Into the metaverse: What does it hold for the future of L&D? — from chieflearningofficer.com by Calvin Coffee

Excerpt:

Instead of putting learners in front of 2D videos where they’re answering questions or just clicking boxes, the metaverse allows learners to experience what a job is actually like before accepting and will enable leaders to see if employees are ready for the next level of work. In the same way flight simulators can prepare pilots for many aspects of operating and flying an aircraft, through technologies like VR the metaverse can prepare employees for almost anything at work.

“This technology can impact every stage of the HR journey for an employee,” Belch says. “We all know the interviewing process is flawed and riddled with bias. Let’s have someone do the job and show us whether or not they can do the job.” And if they mess up in VR, they’re not going to take down the whole factory. From hiring and beyond, there is an abundance of potential spaces that the metaverse can capitalize on and improve.

Research in medical training has found that information retention rates can reach 80 percent after a full year of training through immersive simulated experiences compared to just 20 percent for traditional training. “People are picking it up and are much more comfortable performing their tasks after going through the simulation,” Jordan says. “It’s incredibly powerful.”

Also from chieflearningofficer.com:

How (and why) leaders can (and should) leverage the power of visual thinking — by Todd Cherches

How an Escape Room Is Building Students’ Digital Skills at Northampton Community College — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt of description of podcast:

We spoke with Beth Ritter-Guth, associate dean of online learning and educational technology at the college, to find out how the Learning Lab is engaging students, building digital literacy and providing valuable training in the job skills of the future.

Also see:

Five Concepts You Can Teach Through Geocaching — from freetech4teachers.com by Richard Byrne

Excerpt:

Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop and in my webinar about blending technology into outdoor learning. Geocaching is a great activity to do to get kids outside for hands-on learning experiences. Here are five things that you can teach through geocaching activities.

From DSC:
This next one may be useful for educators and/or parents, but it’s useful for pretty much all of us

Tip of the week: A great group packing tool — from Jared newman

Excerpt:

As an alternative to clunky spreadsheets or endless email chains, WhoBrings is a brilliantly simple way to figure out who’s bringing what.

Just type the name of your packing list into this free website, add some items, then share the link with the rest of the group. Anyone who has the link can then claim responsibility for an item or add new items to the list. You can also specify a number of units for any item—12 beach towels, for instance, or three packs of beer—and people can choose how many they’ll bring.

Also see:

Learning, doing, and teaching biology through multimedia — from MIT Open Learning
Producing multimedia for online courses involves lifelong learning

The Science of Learning: Research Meets Practice [Cook & Boser]

On 05/23/2022, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, faculty, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, liberal arts, lifelong learning, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, parents/guardians, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, research, skills, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, UK, Uncategorized, United States, universities, vocational / trades, youth, by Daniel Christian

The Science of Learning: Research Meets Practice — from the-learning-agency-lab.com by Alisa Cook and Ulrich Boser; with thanks to Learning Now TV for this resource
Six Research-Based Teaching Practices Are Put Into Practice

Excerpt:

For the nation’s education system, though, the bigger question is: How do we best educate our children so that they learn better, and learn how to learn, in addition to learning what to learn? Additionally, and arguably just as challenging, is: How do we translate this body of research into classroom practice effectively?

Enter the “Science of Learning: Research Meets Practice.” The goal of the project is to get the science of learning into the hands of teaching professionals as well as to parents, school leaders, and students.

4 Online Tactics to Improve Blended Learning — from campustechnology.com by Megan Burke, CPA, Ph.D.
An accounting professor shares how best practices from online pedagogy have helped her create a blended learning environment that supports student success.

Excerpts:

Now that students are back in the classroom, I have been combining these tactics with in-person instruction to create a blended learning environment that gives my students the best of both worlds.

The right activities, on the other hand, can make a significant difference. For example:

Breakout rooms (for think/pair/share);
Polls and quizzes that are low-stakes and anonymous to encourage full engagement;
Using the whiteboard option; and
Having reviews of material at the end of class.

I also encourage faculty (and myself!) to get out and meet with employers and ask what we can do to better prepare students, so that we can get a better feel for what first-year staff really need to know — and ensure that we present that knowledge and information in the classroom.

AI research is a dumpster fire and Google’s holding the matches — from thenextweb.com by Tristan Greene
Scientific endeavor is no match for corporate greed

Excerpts:

The world of AI research is in shambles. From the academics prioritizing easy-to-monetize schemes over breaking novel ground, to the Silicon Valley elite using the threat of job loss to encourage corporate-friendly hypotheses, the system is a broken mess.

And Google deserves a lion’s share of the blame.
…
Google, more than any other company, bears responsibility for the modern AI paradigm. That means we need to give big G full marks for bringing natural language processing and image recognition to the masses.

It also means we can credit Google with creating the researcher-eat-researcher environment that has some college students and their big-tech-partnered professors treating research papers as little more than bait for venture capitalists and corporate headhunters.

But the system’s set up to encourage the monetization of algorithms first, and to further the field second. In order for this to change, big tech and academia both need to commit to wholesale reform in how research is presented and reviewed.

Also relevant/see:

Every month Essentials publish an Industry Trend Report on AI in general and the following related topics:

AI Research
AI Applied Use Cases
AI Ethics
AI Robotics
AI Marketing
AI Cybersecurity
AI Healthcare

It’s never too early to get your AI ethics right — from protocol.com by Veronica Irwin
The Ethical AI Governance Group wants to give startups a framework for avoiding scandals and blunders while deploying new technology.

Excerpt:

To solve this problem, a group of consultants, venture capitalists and executives in AI created the Ethical AI Governance Group last September. In March, it went public, and published a survey-style “continuum” for investors to use in advising the startups in their portfolio.

The continuum conveys clear guidance for startups at various growth stages, recommending that startups have people in charge of AI governance and data privacy strategy, for example. EAIGG leadership argues that using the continuum will protect VC portfolios from value-destroying scandals.

Reflections on “It may be time to rethink the emphasis on taking calculus in high school” [Anderson]

On 05/09/2022, in curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, ideas, K-12 related, mathematics, skills, society, student-related, United States, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

OPINION: It may be time to rethink the emphasis on taking calculus in high school — from hechingerreport.org by Veronica Anderson
An argument for opening other paths that could be more relevant to students

Excerpt:

Based on data from surveys and interviews, “A New Calculus for College Admissions” reveals how deep-seated preferences for calculus weigh heavily in decisions about who gets admitted to college.

Yet does it make sense for calculus to have such an influential role in college admission when so few college majors actually require the course? There are other ways for high school students to gain the quantitative reasoning skills that will prepare them for the rigors of college and the workplace.

It’s time to reconsider the dominance of calculus.

From DSC:
I wholeheartedly agree. And along these lines, I think it would be far more beneficial to students to have classes on topics such:

How do I do my taxes?
What legal things do I need to know about (i.e., wills, trusts, civil law-related items, other)?
How can I get and stay healthy?

We should put “How best to study/learn” in all global/course navigation bars [Christian]

On 05/09/2022, in 24x7x365 access, assistive technologies, Canvas - and other Instructure-related items, CMS/LMS, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, education reform, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, interface design, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, learning theories, love of learning, Michigan, microlearning, online learning, online media, parents/guardians, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, research, skills, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, United States, universities, user interface design, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, vocational / trades, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For the last few years, I’ve been thinking that we need to make learning science-related information more accessible to students, teachers, professors, trainers, and employees — no matter what level they are at.

One idea on how to do this — besides putting posters up in the hallways, libraries, classrooms, conference rooms, cafeterias, etc. — is that we could put a How best to study/learn link in all of the global navigation bars and/or course navigation bars out there in organizations’ course management systems and learning management systems. Learners of all ages could have 24 x 7 x 365, easy, instant access as to how to be more productive as they study and learn about new things.

For example, they could select that link in their CMS/LMS to access information on:

Retrieval practice
Spacing
Interleaving
Metacognition
Elaboration
The Growth Mindset
Accessibility-related tools / assistive technologies
Links to further resources re: learning science and learning theories

What do you think? If we started this in K12, kept it up in higher ed and vocational programs, and took the idea into the corporate world, valuable information could be relayed and absorbed. This is the kind of information that is highly beneficial these days — as all of us need to be lifelong learners now.

Learning Ecosystems

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

What I Learned When Visiting a Colleague’s Hybrid Class [Stachowiak]

The DNA of a strong learning culture [Collins]

Into the metaverse: What does it hold for the future of L&D? [Coffee]

Escape rooms, teaching through geocaching, and a great group packing tool!

4 Online Tactics to Improve Blended Learning [Burke]

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