It’s hard to conclude anything other than that higher education has done a spectacularly bad job of managing talent. Campuses have evolved over centuries and dedicated resources to perfect the art and science of human development, while largely outsourcing or ignoring the professional growth and learning of their employees. Rather than draw upon their own experts to develop and retain workers, institutions let employees burn out, and then replace them.
From DSC: Having worked half of my career in the corporate world and the other half within higher education, I would agree with the main points of this article. There are very few job pathways within the world of higher education.
Looking at the one pathway that I’ve seen…it surprises me to think that faculty members who have taught in the classroom and/or served as department chairs or deans for X years are then put into the Provost position and expected to know how to do that job. There is little — if any — training on project management, how to think more strategically and with greater vision, change management, managing budgets, and managing/motivating people.
As you know, employment and education are two of the biggest barriers to successful re-entry for formerly incarcerated people. At the same time, clean energy employers consistently cite a lack of skilled, qualified workers as their primary barrier to market expansion. There’s a huge opportunity for solar to pave a pathway to stable employment for those looking to re-enter the workforce.
That’s why our EcoWatch team created a comprehensive guide on how those who were previously incarcerated can get training in the industry through existing solar programs and apprenticeships:
Formerly incarcerated people continue to face huge obstacles in finding stable employment. According to a recent report, roughly 60% of people released from federal prison are jobless. Research also suggests that those who did find jobs were given no job security or upward mobility.
Mass incarceration is a crisis in this country much like climate change. While many seem aware of it, not enough action has been taken to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, controversy, stigma and misinformation surrounding the issues spread as fast as West Coast wildfires.
But what if climate action could become the key to helping those formerly incarcerated re-enter the workforce?
How to Communicate with Brevity — from qaspire.com by Tanmay Vora; with thanks to Roberto Ferraro for this resource We live in a world of information overload. In such a world, communicating with brevity is a gift to others.
“To have this many workers on strike is really something new in higher education,” says Rebecca Givan, an associate professor of labor studies at Rutgers, who is also president of the union for graduate workers and faculty at her university. “The willingness of these workers to bring their campuses to a standstill is demonstrating that the current model of higher education can’t continue, and that the current system really rests on extremely underpaid labor.”
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The striking workers argue that their current pay makes it challenging to afford housing near their universities, in a state with one of the highest costs of living in the country. Jaime, the Ph.D. candidate, says he makes $27,000 per year as a teaching fellow and pays $1,200 in monthly rent for an apartment he shares with two roommates. (Median rent in the Los Angeles metropolitan area is about $3,000, according to Realtor.com.) “We are the ones who do the majority of teaching and research,” he says. “But nevertheless, the university doesn’t pay us enough to live where we work.”
The strike is shining a spotlight on a longstanding problem within higher education: Today, tenured, full-time faculty members make up a smaller percentage of university employees than they did 50 years ago, in part due to the financial pressures facing universities amid funding cuts. The proportion of other university employees, who receive less job security and lower pay, “has grown tremendously,” says Tim Cain, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education, who studies campus activism and unionization.
“There’s such stratification between the tenured full professor and a graduate student employee or a postdoc or a tutor,” says Cain. “They’re doing a great deal of the work, and the work that they’re doing in the classroom is often very similar to the work of others who are getting paid substantially more.”
OpenAI has built the best Minecraft-playing bot yet by making it watch 70,000 hours of video of people playing the popular computer game. It showcases a powerful new technique that could be used to train machines to carry out a wide range of tasks by binging on sites like YouTube, a vast and untapped source of training data.
The Minecraft AI learned to perform complicated sequences of keyboard and mouse clicks to complete tasks in the game, such as chopping down trees and crafting tools. It’s the first bot that can craft so-called diamond tools, a task that typically takes good human players 20 minutes of high-speed clicking—or around 24,000 actions.
The result is a breakthrough for a technique known as imitation learning, in which neural networks are trained to perform tasks by watching humans do them.
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The team’s approach, called Video Pre-Training (VPT), gets around the bottleneck in imitation learning by training another neural network to label videos automatically.
“Most language learning software can help with the beginning part of learning basic vocabulary and grammar, but gaining any degree of fluency requires speaking out loud in an interactive environment,” Zwick told TechCrunch in an email interview. “To date, the only way people can get that sort of practice is through human tutors, which can also be expensive, difficult and intimidating.”
Speak’s solution is a collection of interactive speaking experiences that allow learners to practice conversing in English. Through the platform, users can hold open-ended conversations with an “AI tutor” on a range of topics while receiving feedback on their pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.
It’s one of the top education apps in Korea on the iOS App Store, with over 15 million lessons started annually, 100,000 active subscribers and “double-digit million” annual recurring revenue.
If you last checked in on AI image makers a month ago & thought “that is a fun toy, but is far from useful…” Well, in just the last week or so two of the major AI systems updated.
You can now generate a solid image in one try. For example, “otter on a plane using wifi” 1st try: pic.twitter.com/DhiYeVMEEV
So, is this a cool development that will become a fun tool for many of us to play around with in the future? Sure. Will people use this in their work? Possibly. Will it disrupt artists across the board? Unlikely. There might be a few places where really generic artwork is the norm and the people that were paid very little to crank them out will be paid very little to input prompts. Look, PhotoShop and asset libraries made creating company logos very, very easy a long time ago. But people still don’t want to take the 30 minutes it takes to put one together, because thinking through all the options is not their thing. You still have to think through those options to enter an AI prompt. And people just want to leave that part to the artists. The same thing was true about the printing press. Hundreds of years of innovation has taught us that the hard part of the creation of art is the human coming up with the ideas, not the tools that create the art.
A quick comment from DSC: Possibly, at least in some cases. But I’ve seen enough home-grown, poorly-designed graphics and logos to make me wonder if that will be the case.
How to Teach With Deep Fake Technology — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang Despite the scary headlines, deep fake technology can be a powerful teaching tool
Excerpt:
The very concept of teaching with deep fake technology may be unsettling to some. After all, deep fake technology, which utilizes AI and machine learning and can alter videos and animate photographs in a manner that appears realistic, has frequently been covered in a negative light. The technology can be used to violate privacy and create fake videos of real people.
However, while these potential abuses of the technology are real and concerning that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to the technology’s potential when using it responsibly, says Jaime Donally, a well-known immersive learning expert.
From DSC: I’m still not sure about this one…but I’ll try to be open to the possibilities here.
Recently, we spoke with three more participants of the AI Explorations program to learn about its ongoing impact in K-12 classrooms. Here, they share how the program is helping their districts implement AI curriculum with an eye toward equity in the classroom.
A hitherto stealth legal AI startup emerged from the shadows today with news via TechCrunch that it has raised $5 million in funding led by the startup fund of OpenAI, the company that developed advanced neural network AI systems such as GPT-3 and DALL-E 2.
The startup, called Harvey, will build on the GPT-3 technology to enable lawyers to create legal documents or perform legal research by providing simple instructions using natural language.
The company was founded by Winston Weinberg, formerly an associate at law firm O’Melveny & Myers, and Gabriel Pereyra, formerly a research scientist at DeepMind and most recently a machine learning engineer at Meta AI.
Unprepared for the Future
Fully 70% of people don’t feel prepared for the future of work, according to a study of 3,000 people conducted by Amazon and Workplace Intelligence. In addition, research by Adobe involving almost 10,000 people across eight global markets found 80% of people are concerned by at least one global issue, upsetting them enough to impact negatively on their productivity and job satisfaction.
… Big Implications
The implications for employers are significant as well, with 64%-66% of people saying they are likely to leave their employer because there aren’t enough opportunities for skills development or career advancement.
The status of the teaching profession is at its lowest in five decades, new research suggests, which its authors say is “cause for national concern.”
In a new paper published Tuesday, researchers at Brown University and the University at Albany compiled and analyzed decades’ worth of national data from more than a dozen sources about factors like teachers’ morale, the perceived prestige of the profession, and interest in entering the field, to create an annual profile of the profession between 1970 and 2022.
What they found is sobering. It suggests that the pandemic has only added fuel to a job that’s steadily declined in prestige and attractiveness for more than a decade.
“When you look at the data that we have, it’s hard to see us in a spot anywhere else other than a really critical tipping point in public education,” said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown and co-author of the report.
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Reversing “the trend of top-down control over teachers” and creating meaningful career pathways, including professional development and peer observation opportunities, could help restore morale, Kraft and Lyon wrote in their paper, though they did not recommend specific approaches.
The main finding? Accelerated learning simply requires more. More staff, more resources, more energy, more buy-in from teachers.
As district leaders talked about their day-to-day realities, they shared how those things were all tough to come by when everyone in the system was already stretched thin.
Not necessarily related to the above item, but I wanted to pass this one along to you as well:
Skills profiles make it easier for educators and employers to understand how skills gained in learning can be transferred to those required in earning.
This QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project Report demonstrates both how badges and microcredentials can be incorporated into a range of higher education courses and, through doing this, how we can ultimately personalise learning and earning.
What is National Apprenticeship Week? NAW is a nationwide celebration where industry, labor, equity, workforce, education, and government leaders host events to showcase the successes and value of Registered Apprenticeship for re-building our economy, advancing racial and gender equity, and supporting underserved communities. NAW is an opportunity to highlight how Registered Apprenticeship, a proven and industry-driven training model, provides a critical talent pipeline that can help to address some of our nation’s pressing workforce challenges such as rebuilding our country’s infrastructure, addressing critical supply chain demands, supporting a clean energy workforce, modernizing our cybersecurity response, and responding to care economy issues.
Also relevant/see:
Understanding New Collar Apprenticeships— from workshift.opencampusmedia.org; requires you to complete a form to get the guide Apprenticeships aren’t what they used to be. Long a pathway into the trades, apprenticeships now are also preparing Americans for new-collar jobs in fields from healthcare to tech. And governments and companies are putting big money into modernizing, diversifying, and growing the system—hoping to change the face of apprenticeships. This guide takes a look at this evolving landscape.
From Teaching to Tech – Q&A With Joanna Cappuccilli— from devlinpeck.com by Devlin Peck and Joanna Cappuccilli Would you like to transition out of the classroom and into a corporate instructional design role?
Excerpt:
In this Q&A session, we talk with Joanna Cappuccilli about how she transitioned from full-time teacher to full-time curriculum developer at Amazon Web Services, as well as the steps she took to get there.
Joanna and I discuss how developing a portfolio, networking effectively, and preparing extensively for interviews led to her successfully landing a tech role.
A looming economic slowdown, the Great Resignation, a relentlessly expanding skills gap, and employees that would simply rather work from home. This week at Fortune’s CEO Initiative forum, a panel of company executives discussed the litany of challenges they face in developing and maintaining their workforces over the next several years.
In researching “upskilling for L&D practitioners” earlier this year, Learning Guild members were asked what they feel has been the biggest shift in their work over time: While technology has driven much change, sometimes seemingly exponentially, nearly everyone talked about a different sort of shift. This was true even of those who landed on the younger end of the experience spectrum. According to respondents, the biggest change is the move away from the idea that the primary role of L&D is to create “courses.” Technology changed and became easier to use, enabling development of myriad digital solutions. As noted in that report, respondents viewed this change as welcome and positive. …
When asked what other types of content respondents created to be delivered OUTSIDE of a traditional course, the most common responses were creating video and job aids/performance support materials. Microlearning and curated content were also frequently mentioned, and curated collections of existing material was popular with those engaged in traditional design.
Also relevant/see:
Games, Organizing, & Motivation: ID Links 10/25/22 — from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker Curated links on games built in Twine, storytelling, organization, useful tools, motivation, and transitioning from teaching to ID.
From DSC: Under the Storytelling and CYOA books section, it was interesting to see the Random Plot Generator, where Christy wrote: “A writing prompt tool to generate two characters, a setting, situation, theme, and character action. This could be a fun way to start scenarios if you’re feeling stuck. h/t Jean Marrapodi.”
I thought this might be a good tool for developing writers, improv actors, and likely others as well! 🙂
Also from Christy Tucker, see:
Voice Over and Video in Branching Scenarios When should you use voice over and video in branching scenarios? Use them for stable content and when multimedia improve skill transfer.
If the content is very stable and unlikely to change much over time, voice over might make sense in a branching scenario. Investing in creating video also makes more sense for more stable content and skills than for something that changes every 6 months.
As the founder of a technology investment firm, I’ve seen firsthand just how much AI has advanced in such a short period of time. The underlying building blocks of the technology are getting astonishingly better at an exponential rate, far outpacing our expectations. Techniques like deep learning allow us to run complex AI models to solve the most difficult problems. But while those who work in technology-centric careers are aware of AI’s explosive capabilities, the public at large is still largely unaware of the depth of AI’s potential.
Enterprise functions such as marketing, sales, finance and HR are all areas that can utilize new AI-enabled applications; these applications include providing customers with 24/7 financial guidance, predicting and assessing loan risks and collecting and analyzing client data.
Let’s explore some real-life artificial intelligence applications.
Using Artificial Intelligence for Navigation
Marketers Use Artificial Intelligence to Increase Their Efficiency
The use of Artificial Intelligence in robotics
Gaming and Artificial Intelligence
Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Lifestyles
Artificial intelligence (AI): 7 roles to prioritize now — from enterprisersproject.com by Marc Lewis; with thanks to Mr. Stephen Downes for this resource Which artificial intelligence (AI) jobs are hottest now? Consider these seven AI/ML roles to prioritize in your organization
While these seven AI roles are critical, finding talent to fill them is difficult. AI, machine learning, and data analytics are new fields, and few people have relevant experience.
This leads us back to the fact: We are dealing with a Great Reallocation of the labor force to an AI/Machine learning, data-driven world.
3 ways AI is scaling helpful technologies worldwide — from blog.google by Jeff Dean Decades of research have led to today’s rapid progress in AI. Today, we’re announcing three new ways people are poised to benefit.
Excerpts:
Supporting 1,000 languages with AI
Empowering creators and artists with AI
Addressing climate change and health challenges with AI
Transferable skills combine competencies, knowledge and skills that you have gained from the workplace during your career path, from school, internships or elsewhere and take with you to your next employment or career change.
General skills that can be used in different employment roles come under the transferable skills banner; they can be used in various industries and in roles at other seniority levels.
These can be hard skills – technical knowledge like using specific software – and soft skills, the competencies and abilities that are harder to be taught, like active listening and communication.
Communication, problem solving and teamwork are all examples of transferable job skills because they can be used in any employed role, your education or vocational training.
In the authors’ work teaching and coaching thousands of managers, they have identified four traps – self-sufficiency, overthinking, procrastination and searching for the answer – that prevent leaders from taking the first steps necessary for considering and exploring possible new versions of themselves for the future. The authors have found ways to help leaders recognize which traps they are falling into and start imagining a way out — largely inspired by design thinking principles such as rapid prototyping, making ideas visual, and getting quick feedback.
