staying relevant

2U, Guild Education Partner to Expand Online Education for Adult Workers — from edsurge.com by Tony Wan

Excerpt:

But the current crisis is anything but, and an increasingly remote workforce will only accelerate the need for new skills and habits to keep companies running.
…
2U, a publicly traded company, will make its degree programs, short courses and online coding “bootcamps” available to Guild Education’s network of employers. That’s over 500 programs, spanning more than 30 disciplines, that they will have access to. It’s largely up to the employer to choose which ones they want to subsidize for their workers, Freedman says.

“Businesses are eliminating some roles, yet are desperate to hire for others. But you cannot hire away to solve what is fundamentally a training problem.” In other words, it makes more sense to invest in training internal talent, rather than firing people and hiring replacements.

Public Viewpoint: COVID-19 Work and Education Research — from cci.stradaeducation.org

Excerpt:

In the recovering economy, employers will play a central role as Americans look to reskill, upskill, and compete in the workforce. But what do people want and expect from employers’ hiring, advancement, and training practices? In this research we explore the public’s perceptions on skills-based hiring, preferences for employer-provided education and training benefits, and beliefs about who should fund education and training.

This week’s data are based on the Strada Student Viewpoint and Strada-Gallup Education Consumer surveys. The research is intended to provide insights to the education and training providers, policymakers, employers, and individual Americans who are navigating the COVID-19 crisis.

Time for Reinvention, Not Just Replication or Revision — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder
With enrollments falling, college budgets under strain and employers dissatisfied with the relevance of graduates’ learning, now is a time for more than replication or revision — it is time for reinvention.

Excerpt:

We are at the confluence of massive economic, technologic and social changes that demand higher education do more than small fixes. We will not thrive if we merely tweak the system to replicate practices of the lecture hall in an online delivery system. This is not an empty warning — universities across the country are closing programs, laying off staff and faculty, and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. I have personally been tracking these economic disadvantages for some time now.

Here are the key factors we must consider…(see rest of article)

Our centuries-old model of admitting 18-year-old high school graduates for a four-, five- or six-year baccalaureate, then sending them out for lifelong careers in business and industry is no longer relevant.

How Much Has Covid Cost Colleges? $183 Billion — from chronicle.com by Paul N. Friga

Excerpt:

How bad is it? To answer that, my colleagues and I sought to go beyond surveys. We conducted an extensive review of publicly announced revenue and budget news from the top 400 universities in U.S. News & World Report, as well as its top 100 liberal-arts colleges, drawing from news released from March through December. We were able to obtain data from 107 of those institutions (21 percent). The results are dire. Our research suggests that we are experiencing the biggest financial losses our sector has ever faced. The institutions we tracked averaged an estimated 14-percent aggregate decline in revenues across fiscal years 2020 and 2021, and further losses loom as drops in enrollment, tuition freezes, and Covid-related expenses continue.

What do these cuts and losses add up to? We estimate the impact as follows: $85 billion in lost revenues, $24 billion for Covid-related expenses, and $74 billion in anticipated future decreases in state funding. That adds up to a whopping $183 billion.

Also see:

65 Percent of Colleges Raised Less in 2020 Than 2019, Survey Finds — from philanthropy.com by Emily Haynes
Donations to colleges stayed flat at $50B in fiscal 2020 — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz

Nearly 3/4’s of pandemic affected parents feel Ss should learn subjects they’re passionate about, not those of little interest [Unschooling School]

On 02/07/2021, in Canada, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, parents/guardians, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, play, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, surviving, teachers, United States, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Nearly three-quarters of pandemic affected parents feel students should learn subjects they’re passionate about, not those of little interest — from newswire.ca by Unschooling School

Excerpt:

TORONTO, Feb. 1, 2021 /CNW/ – A nation-wide survey of Canadian parents released today finds that nearly three in four of them (73%) believe the education system today would be better for students if it were structured to give them more choice and time to just learn those subjects and topics, they are either excited or passionate about.

Also, more than two-thirds (67%) want a school reset, so students learn more of the subject areas they’re passionate about and not those of little interest to them.

From DSC:
I feel the same way about many K12 systems here in the United States. Our youngest daughter — who has been studying at home this past year — has so much more energy and passion when we give her more agency to do the things that *she* wants to do and to learn about the things that *she* wants to learn about.

Learning channels of the future will provide us with more choice, more control.

And readers of this blog know that I’m all about the love of learning (or even liking it better), seeing as we all need to be lifelong learners these days.

The more we enjoy learning = The better, more fulfilling, enjoyable that our lives will be! (Not to mention how much more productive we’ll be as well.)

A Strategic Roadmap for The Next Decade [Westervelt]

On 01/26/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Alternatives, Amazon, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, data related items, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, platforms, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, technology (general), trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A Strategic Roadmap for The Next Decade — from evolllution.com by Rob Westervelt

Excerpts:

Get obsessed with your learner
Adopt more than one model
Align with partners
Create lifelong learning models
Build the system of the future

MOOC Enrollment Explodes in 2020 — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

According to a new report by Class Central, a company that tracks massive open online courses, of all learners who have registered for MOOCs throughout their history, a third did so last year. Coursera, the largest MOOC operator, added nearly four times the number of new registered users, exploding from 8 million in 2019 to 31 million in 2020 — a rise of 387 percent. Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, estimated that Coursera’s total number of users is currently 76 million.

Whereas topics in technology, business and career development dominated pre-COVID-19, during the pandemic learners focused on wider interests: Art and design, self-improvement, the humanities, communication skills, health & medicine and foreign languages surfaced in the top 10 subjects.

Also see:

From DSC:
Reading through the article below, I can’t help but wonder…how might the eviction crisis impact higher education?

Losing a Home Because of the Pandemic Is Hard Enough. How Long Should It Haunt You? — from nytimes.com by Barbara Kiviat (professor of sociology) and Sara Sternberg Greene (law professor)
Americans who default on their rent may find it hard to escape lasting effects on their financial future.

Excerpts:

Millions of Americans have fallen behind on rent during the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting the passage of eviction moratoriums and rental assistance plans. But as policymakers have struggled to meet the needs of tenants and landlords, they’ve largely overlooked a crucial fact: The looming eviction crisis isn’t just about falling behind on rent and losing one’s home to eviction. It’s also about the records of those events, captured in court documents and credit reports, that will haunt millions of Americans for years to come.

Just as criminal records carry collateral consequences — preventing people from getting jobs, renting apartments and so on — blemishes on a person’s financial history can have far-ranging effects. Records of evictions can prevent Americans from renting new places to live, and debts and lawsuits related to unpaid rent can follow people as they apply for jobs, take out insurance policies, apply for mortgages and more. The process starts when landlords report late payments directly, file for eviction, sue in small claims court and hire debt collectors to pursue back rent. Those paper trails of unpaid rent and eviction get sucked into the digital warehouses of credit bureaus and data brokers.

DC: The debt from obtaining a degree can last for decades these days. How can institutions of traditional higher education be part of the solution here and not part of the problem?https://t.co/UfOopD3RLI #highereducation #futureofhighereducation #60yearcurriculum

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) December 30, 2020

#survivingcovid19 #reinvent #highereducation #futureofhighereducation #60yearcurriculum #costofhighereducation #alternatives #innovation #learningfromthelivingclassroom and many more

The Year TV Leaped Into The Future [Roettgers]

On 12/27/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, game-changing environment, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, platforms, reinvent, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, surviving, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The Year TV Leaped Into The Future — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers

The lockdowns this year have transformed our homes into offices, schools, concert halls, movie theaters and gyms. Our homes are working harder for us, but so is our technology. The device that is working the hardest is perhaps the TV—becoming our lifeline to a far more virtual world.

Addendums:

The Second Year of The MOOC: 2020 Saw a Rush to Large-Scale Online Courses — from edsurge.com by Dhawal Shah

Excerpt:

This was the year that more people learned what a MOOC is.

As millions suddenly found themselves with free time on their hands during the pandemic, many turned to online courses—especially, to free courses known as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. This phenomenon was compounded by media worldwide compiling lists of “free things to do during lockdown,” which tended to include MOOCs.

Within two months, Class Central had received over 10 million visits and sent over six million clicks to MOOC providers. These learners also turned out to be more engaged than usual. In April 2020, MOOC providers Coursera, edX and FutureLearn attracted as many new users in a single month as they did in the entirety of 2019.

.

From DSC:
The pieces continue to come together…

...team-based content creation and delivery will dominate in the future (at least for the masses). It will offer engaging, personalized learning and the AI-based systems will be constantly scanning for the required/sought-after skills and competencies. The systems will then present a listing of items that will help people obtain those skills and competencies.

#AI #LearningProfiles #Cloud #LearningFromTheLivingClassRoom #LearningEcosystems #LearningSpaces #21stCentury #24x7x365 #Reinvent #Surviving #StayingRelevant #LifeLongLearning and many more tags/categories are applicable here.

The most fundamental skill: Intentional learning and the career advantage — from mckinsey.com by Lisa Christensen, Jake Gittleson, and Matt Smith
Learning itself is a skill. Unlocking the mindsets and skills to develop it can boost personal and professional lives and deliver a competitive edge.

Excerpt:

This article, supported by research and our decades of experience working as talent and learning professionals, explores the core mindsets and skills of effective learners. People who master these mindsets and skills become what we call intentional learners: possessors of what we believe might be the most fundamental skill for professionals to cultivate in the coming decades. In the process they will unlock tremendous value both for themselves and for those they manage in the organizations where they work.

Our ability to reflect is threatened on many fronts. Being overscheduled, overworked, and overloaded affects our ability to pause and assess our circumstances and performance. But the noisier the world around us, the greater the need for dedicated reflection time. Intentional learners not only engage in reflection but also, in many cases, ritualize it. They create consistent and predictable patterns, both for when they will reflect and what they will think about. They establish strategies for capturing these thoughts and referring back to them often. By relying on ritual, learners reduce the number of decisions associated with reflection (for example, when, what, and how), so it becomes easier to return to the practice repeatedly.

From DSC:
That last quote (re: taking the time to reflect and to think about one’s thinking) brought the power of learning journals to my mind.

Online learning and law schools during the pandemic — from tonybates.ca by Tony Bates

Excerpt:

Pre-Covid, law schools and especially law accrediting agencies in North America have been pretty conservative in the past with regard to online or more accurately distance learning (see Online education and the professional associations: the case of law, for more details on the situation in 2018).

We can then fairly safely assume that most of these schools would have had no or little prior experience of online learning before March of this year. So it is interesting that 89% of students in law schools in the USA responding to a Thomson Reuters survey reported that during Covid-19 they were taking classes entirely online.
…
However, for me the most interesting results are in the graph below:

Preferences for permanent changes

It seems clear that at least some level of online instruction will continue in the future, and that online learning will become widespread for at least some types of classes.

Given that there was almost no online learning in law schools in the USA pre-Covid 19, this is a significant conclusion.

From DSC:
I appreciate Tony writing about this topic. He’s correct in saying the ABA and the legal education field — along with the entire legal realm — was behind the 8 ball in terms of online learning (and I would add the use of emerging technologies in general). In fact, I’d say that the ABA was essentially twenty years behind in terms of getting on board the online learning train. It still has a ways to go…but the pressure is on the ABA to get with the times. Our society requires that they do so. The pace of change has been changing for a decade or more now. They can no longer walk on the race track and hope to not get in the way of a world that’s traveling at 180 mph.

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

Make no mistake, if the ABA — and the legal field in general — continues at their previous pace, we all will pay the price. Consider but a few areas that are already having an impact on our society:

#AI #blockchain #XR #AR #MR #VR #robotics #bots #algorithms #ethics #BigData #learningagents #legaltech #NLP #emergingtechnologies

Along with other tags that apply here:

#stayingrelevant #reinvent #vision #leadership #strategy #A2J (Access to Justice)

Higher Ed Faces a Long and Uneven Recovery, Ratings Agencies Warn — from chronicle.com by Scott Carlson

Excerpt:

Two financial outlooks for higher ed appeared on Tuesday, and their most compelling parts were the longer-term prospects for the nation’s colleges and universities — because the near-term picture should be clear to nearly everyone by now. It’s not good.

In their predictions, both Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings note the various ways that institutions are in pain right now: The pandemic has undercut tuition revenue, as colleges have seen sliding enrollment or have had to discount tuition heavily to bring in students. The proceeds of auxiliary services — such as student housing and dining — “remain the hardest-hit revenue stream,” Moody’s says, given that such income can account for 5 to 30 percent of a college’s operating revenue.

Survey: Employee Success is Becoming Increasingly Dependent on Automation Skills

On 12/04/2020, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, society, staying relevant, surviving, technology (general), trends, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Survey: Employee Success is Becoming Increasingly Dependent on Automation Skills — from uipath.com by Toni Iafrate; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this resource

Excerpt:

Since the start of the pandemic in particular, digital adoption has accelerated to solve for evolving market conditions, new customer needs and changed employee circumstances. In fact, a new McKinsey study found that 85% of C-suite executives reported a significant acceleration of digitization and automation during the pandemic in an effort to stay agile and maintain continuity amid business disruptions.

Learning Ecosystems

2U, Guild Education Partner to Expand Online Education for Adult Workers [Wan]

Time for Reinvention, Not Just Replication or Revision [Schroeder]

How Much Has Covid Cost Colleges? $183 Billion [Friga]

MOOC Enrollment Explodes in 2020 [Schaffhauser]

How might the eviction crisis impact higher education? [Christian]

Reflections on “A Nation’s Economy Divided: Breadlines vs Bread Makers” [Donnan]

Reflections on “Online learning and law schools during the pandemic” [Bates]

Higher Ed Faces a Long and Uneven Recovery, Ratings Agencies Warn [Carlson]

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