Liberal Workforce Development?

Recommendation 2, from page 8 of “College Learning in the New Global Century"
seems to offer a counterpoint to the brewing idea that offering Stackable Certificates is the way to ensure effective workforce development. LEAP suggests that 2-year colleges, traditionally and currently the institutions that focus primarily on skills development for employability, should integrate liberal education into all coursework. Here is the excerpt from the report, with my emphases:


"Nearly half the nation’s college students, and the majority of
students from low-income families, begin their studies in two-year
institutions. It should be a national priority to ensure that these
students, whatever their career choices and preparation, become richly
prepared for a changing economy, for the option of further study, and
for a lifetime of continuous learning—as employees and as citizens.

This recommendation neither requires nor anticipates that
community college students should study only, or primarily, what
are conventionally known as arts and sciences or “general education”
courses. Rather, it calls on two-year and four-year institutions, in every
state and region, to collaboratively remap the curriculum so that arts
and sciences and professional or “career” courses can work together,
from first to final years, to foster the broad knowledge, sophisticated
skills, personal and social responsibility, and demonstrated achievement
that every student needs and deserves."

The Holy Grail?

I wish that i could remember how I linked to this site....I actually think that it was through the Ohio STEM Learning Network somehow.....



At any rate, College Learning for the New Global Century(2007), a report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) beautifully and compellingly describes what revsions need to occur in Liberal Arts education in order to make this field of study relevant in the 21st century. While STEM education is getting the lion's share of publicity, funding and fans, the authors of the LEAP report argue that Liberal Arts education is essential to student success and must not be ignored.



Of particular interest is the fact that authors of the LEAP report urge us to think deeply about what college grads need to know--a question, they argue, that has not been asked.



The authors of this report see liberal education as a "liberating education", one that shapes and melds civic awareness, global awareness, and complex problem solving ability through an interdisciplinary inquiry and knowledge base.



Echoing the tenets of STEM education, LEAP urges learner directed activities in education. Unlike STEM, LEAP encourages institutions of higher learning to avoid falling into the trap of educating within one discipline, one focus, one major. Think engineering majors who do a service project in rural Mali for 2 weeks (Miami University has done this) and then publish a paper on their experiences or science PhD candidates at OSU who, as thier graduate assistantship, serve at Metro High school, leading students though cutting edge experiences and inviting teachers to participate in experimental endeavors with them....

21st Century Skills, Web 2.0 and Changing the "Learningscape"

"Creating a Culture of Learning", John Seely Brown's forward to Opening Up Education: the Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content and Open Knowledge (Toru Iiyoshi and M.S. Vijay Kumar, eds) provides a great framework for thinking about course design changes. Brown acknowledges that many current teaching approaches fail to capture the 21st century student's mind, experiences and facility with Web 2.0 technology. He positions Web 2.0 tools within the emerging "learningscape", one in which Internet based participation, collaboration and networking will help students to become active agents of their own learning processes. He says it much better and with much more detail than I can, so read on

Web 2.0 and Today's Workforce

Unfortunately, I cannot link to the Aberdeen Report, which, according to CNN.com and other sites was sponsored at some point, but according to Aberdeen's page, is no longer sponsored or viewable by nonmembers. Shame. The secondary sources that I have found, however, capture and summarize the findings of the study that are relevant to my project, namely, that Web 2.0 capabilities are essential for individuals entering the current workforce.

Aberdeen found that "Best in Class" companies utilize Web 2.0 tools in order to increase worker productivity and output. These companies invest in the professional development of their workers who might need guidance in using these tools.

The important take away here is that in the business world, working with Web 2.0 is a fundamental skill. If it valued in the workplace, then it should be valued and cultivated in academia.

Exciting Resources for Instructors

1) The Open Learning Initiative from Carnegie Mellon University is a free offering of courses ranging from Biology to Economics to French. I entered into the French module and performed some of the exercises - they were quite engaging and would be an extremely useful addition to any French course in their student-directed pacing, self-testing, and real-life (video) simulations.

Professors who are interested in using some of the OLI models (Causal and Statistical Reasoning, Economics, French I, French II, Logic, Statistics)must register and pay a small fee. However, there are also resources for building courses and opportunities for students (or any interested individual) to participate in these courses.

2) From Merlot (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching), ideas for course enhancement and a Virtual Instructional Design helper

Recently launched site offers support for instructors

The Social Media Classroom site offers helpful information for looking at

• specific classroom tools that we should be looking into: integrated forum, blog, comment, wiki, chat, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, widgets , and video commenting
• how the use of these tools can enhance learning and help to reposition the student's experience from receiver of information to participatory seeker and creator of information
• how Web 2.0 tools are a rich extension of the best elements of traditional classroom methods, particularly those that are valued here: collaboration and self-expression

In order to access the repository of resources for educators, one needs a login ID and password.

Training in Web 2.0 for Higher Ed

This is perhaps a taste of what we have been looking for, from the Higher Education 2.0 Blog:

Training modules for using Web 2.o in the college classroom!

This resource can help us to understand what it is we should know and students should know...not an end in and of itself, but a helpful resource for defining our needs: podcasting, blogging, using wikis, and general conceptual frameworks for these tools.

SocialLearn: Guidance for Moving Foreward?

I came across this site while searching "Web 2.o and Higher education". The ideas that I found here are articulated in a manner that has eluded me, namely, the Assumptions that SocialLearn holds regarding 21st century education:

from their site:

• There is a major shift in society and education driven by the possibilities new technologies create for creating and sharing content and for social networking.
• Higher education, to date, has not really addressed how to engage with these fundamental shifts and their impact on the core business model of higher education.
• There is educational value in the application of both the technologies seen in web 2.0 and the approaches they embody.
• The status quo is no longer feasible or advisable; we need to apply the best of our expertise and experience to address the necessary change.
• Competition in the learner sphere is ever more complex, multi-faceted and fragmented; If higher education doesn’t address the issues this raises someone else will.
• The principles embodied in SocialLearn reflect the essence of the proposal – harnessing social networking for learning and include adopting an approach which is open, flexible, disruptive, democratic and, most importantly, pedagogically driven.

I feel somewhat validated

The following is an excerpt from David Loertcher's article "invention, transfer, efficiency, and innovation: 21st-century learning abilities can be taught", found in Teacher Librarian. 34.5 (June 2007). My comments are in italics at the end.

"Most learning experiences currently concentrate on efficiency: coming up with right answers using recognized techniques. . . [H]owever, these desirable learning characteristics--if really valued by society--must be assessed by using methods different from current standardized tests.

Action steps for the teacher-librarian when teaching alone or in collaboration with the classroom teacher follow:

At the beginning of a lesson, ask students to manipulate data on a topic to come up with an explanation, a formula, a way of seeing relationships--a preliminary invention of ideas. Do not criticize these efforts, even if they seem wrong. For example, if you know that students are going to face a wide spectrum of opinions on an issue, then provide them with a range of opinions in random order and ask groups or pairs of students to come up with a way to picture, group, or explain differences of opinion. Do not criticize charts or groupings; the students are inventing ways of thinking about data.

Teach the students how some experts deal with a range of opinions, by constructing an opinion line, such as that demonstrating for-and-against opinions or pro-and-con opinions. Have students retrieve articles on the subject and place the various opinions from the articles onto the opinion line; have them defend their placement.

Present students with a task that requires them to place articles on the opinion line as taught. They may argue among themselves about the position of a particular authority that seems to be taking a middle-of-the-road stance.

Assess their work as you normally would.
Finally, give the students a unique problem to solve where the technique taught might be one key in the solution to the problem. Assess their ability to encounter this novel problem in a new situation."

This is an English degree, only the "data" is words. If English studies - a core of Liberal Arts along with Philosophy, History, and other Humanities subjects - is already encouraging this type of intellectual pursuit and this type of intellectual pursuit is THE hot topic, why are the Humanities being underdiscussed, undervalued and underrecognized? People seem to discuss 21st century skills as something that needs to be incorporated into classrooms because it is not necessarily there.....but, in terms of critical thinking, it is.

Conversation, Voice, and Technology in the Classroom

Through the Educause website, I found the following article that will provide a great basis for describing the need for integrated technology. I have highlighted the key points - that which clearly supports the current mission.

Other writers and researchers have focused on the idea that while alone, in front of a computer, a student may find more of a voice that they would in the classroom. That surely describes me as a sophomore who was embarrassed by how much I loved my literature studies. And this private, cyber-public participation does not preclude physical-public participation. In fact, becoming comfortable with one's voice via technology may effectively, if slowly, build a shy student's confidence.

Sarah Robbins-Bell writes
"Today’s moderately tech-savvy student is accustomed to having a voice. Social networks (e.g., Facebook), instant messaging, blogs, and virtual worlds not only allow conversation but rely on it. After all, what would a service like YouTube or Digg look like if no one contributed content and no one commented? Instead, these popular social media services feature high levels of participation, numerous contributions and discussions, and even detailed debates.
We know that the demographics of Facebook, Digg, Fark, and World of Warcraft are the same as the general demographics of college/university students. So, why don’t we see the same levels of participation in the social media that are used in the classroom (typically, learning management systems) as are evident in the social media that students engage in voluntarily? I think the problem is that our pedagogy often isn’t ready for an increase in conversation."

Robbins-Bell goes on to explain that part of what makes online learning so compelling is the element of constant development in space and time that occurs in games, on social networking sites, etc. Young people become devoted to these 21st century endeavors, she posits, because they must do so if they wish to keep up with what is going on. The world keeps developing and evolving around them, and if they fail to check in, they become lost, irrelevant, late, confused.

20th century vs 21st century classrooms

Abilene Christian University published a useful comparsion of the 20th century education model
to the 21st century educational model. In the 20th century, education adn pedegogical approach focused on hierarchy, specialization, and formalized interaction. The teacher was the authority in his or her particular subject. The classroom, the textbook and/or the lecturer was the locus of academic progress and process. However, in the 21st century, barriers are broken. Just as we in Northeast Ohio hear about the push towards economic and political regionalism, just as we in America feel the effects of globalized economies and cultures - both of which necessitate and reflect a loss of rigid individualism, so it is in academia.

The ACU website delineated several concepts regarding 21st century learning. The teachers must now focus on his.her mentoring role, and be a guide to students who are actively engaged in inquiry, discovery, exploration and critical sysnthesis of the wealth of information available to them. The classroom is no longer the locus of learning; rather, the student, who is "connected", directs class content and creates classroom learning paths.

From The International Society for Technology in Education

The National Educational Technology Standards for Students offer a technology-centered outline for what our 21st century students need to learn and apply. This list provides details for enhancing the 21st century skill set with technology.

Of equal importance are the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers, which offer a basic framework for planning professional development goals and assessing professional development success.

Best Practices in 21st Century Skills

• Using Wikis as Electronic Portfolios for collaborative work employ Web 2.0 capabilities in the service of knowledge creatioon and knowledge expression produced from group work




• Personal e-Portfolios developed either throughout one course or - perhaps more compelling - throughout the college experience allow a student to maintain a living document of academic progress, findings, research. reflections and growth. This could be useful in a job search, and, for Graduate students in particular, would serve as a timeless snapshot of graduate work/thought/research/curiosity/process/intellectual fire!

• 3D Virtual Environments (Second Life, Active Worlds, Central Grid, Kaneva, Twinity, CyberNet Worlds, The Palace, Furcadia, and Project DarkStar) are at the cutting edge of classroom technology.

• Faculty "grad seminar" style of professional development for faculty supports professionalism and encourages enthousiasm for exploring new technologies while engaging faculty in intellectual growth

• The ChemCollective offers free online resources for teaching and learning Chemistry

• The TLT Group lists ideas for encouraging student to student collaboration using technology, including web quests, discussion boards, and group web page construction.

• The TLT Group also points out that technology integration in the classroom allows instructors to create a more inclusive or diverse learning environment, one that, by virtue of multifaceted presentation, is perhpas more effective at engaging all students

• Creating a Ning site for faculty members or for Graduate classes - one can set up a social networking site that is limited to certain participants - a sort of Facebook with academic perameters and only open to students/faculty here

• From Classroom 2.0, educators offer ideas about the Web 2.0 tools that they use in the classroom, inlcuding Google Notebook, Google Reader, Del.icio.us, podcasting, wikispaces and more

Professional Development for 21st century Skills- technology

• The Partnership for 21st Century Skills published an e-paper outlining basic strategies and benchmarks for professional development . This paper refers to P16 educators, and often indicates a focus on teacher training. However, the basics are useful.

• From Digital Learning Environments : ideas on grant seeking and professional development planning
  



• Professional Development offered in Missouri by eMINTS (the instructional model focuses on connecting inquiry, community, high quality lesson design, technology and evaluation)




• Alan McCord offers the followng consideration: While formal training can improve faculty attitudes toward technology, it is most effective in practical terms when comprehensively delivered and accompanied by incentives (Gilmore 1998). For this reason an understanding of what motivates faculty to use online instruction as well as what inhibits such use should inform a training protocol. Maguire (2005) identifies three forms of motivation that influence faculty in their decisions regarding the use of online teaching resources:
  - Intrinsic motivators involve personal attitudes affecting technology adoption.
  - Extrinsic motivators incorporate incentives such as promotion, tenure, and opportunities for collaboration with other faculty.
  - Institutional motivators appeal to potential users by means of the support, compensation, release time, and recognition made available by the university.
  While Maguire (Maguire, L. 2005. Literature review—Faculty participation in online distance education: Barriers and motivators. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 8) argues that positive extrinsic and institutional motivators may outweigh negative intrinsic motivators, she also notes that developers of online programs should understand that faculty may experience extrinsic and institutional motivation as a type of peer pressure. If reluctant faculty members feel compelled to incorporate technology, they might experience less satisfaction with their instructional experience and higher rates of burnout (Beam and Kim 2002). Special care should be taken to provide additional support to faculty who participate in online teaching because of a perceived pressure to participate(This article was originally published in Innovate (http://www.innovateonline.info/) as McCord, A. 2006. Staffing and supporting a new online initiative. Innovate 3 (2). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=406 (accessed October 13, 2008).



• 21st Century Connections has reconceptualized (in an exciting way!) what the role of the 21st century educator is, namely, a visonary, a leader, an adaptor, a learner, and a risk taker.

New learning styles for 21st century students

From "Transforming Learning for the 21st Century: An Economic Imperative",
Chris Dede, Harvard University
Spence Korte, Learning, Leading & Technology
Robert Nelson, Learning, Leading & Technology
Gil Valdez, Learning Point Associates
David J. Ward, Northstar Economics

The authors discuss innovative learning technologies that transcend traditional lecture models in order to engage students
As computers and telecommunications continue to evolve, new forms of "neomillennial" learning styles are emerging. Research on sophisticated interactive media suggests that the following may emerge as cross-age learning styles (Dede, 2005b):
• Fluency in multiple media, valuing each for the types of communication, activities, experiences, and expressions it empowers
• Learning based on collectively seeking, sieving, and synthesizing experiences rather than individually locating and absorbing information from some single best source
• Active learning based on experience (real and simulated) that includes frequent opportunities for reflection
• Expression through nonlinear, associational webs of representations rather than linear "stories" (e.g., authoring a simulation and a Web page to express understanding rather than a paper)
• Codesign of learning experiences personalized to individual needs and preferences

These trends have a variety of implications for how students can acquire 21st century knowledge and skills through pedagogies and media that engage their interests, build on strengths from their leisure activities outside of school, and speak to their learning styles.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Colleges Struggle to Keep 'Smart' Classrooms Up to Date"

We have to foreground and sustain professional dvelopment.

It is important to focus on the human element of technology in the classroom, not the hardware aspect of technology in the classroom. It appears that one of the first needs identified by people who want to incorporate more technology into teaching is hardware. This is a one shot, installation and-it's-done mentality that essentially is a set up for longer term failure. Technology needs grow quickly, and that which is considered "cutting edge" changes quickly....People need to be able to keep up.

Growth in NEO from 2005-2006

The report that I have linked below is useful for thinking about the importance of technology in colleges that prepare graduates for the Northeast Ohio workforce. We are well situated in terms of our healthcare offerings, management offerings and educational services. However, because technology is forecasted to be the backbone of our future economy, technological training in institutions serving Northeast Ohio residents - the people who do not intend to leave the region upon graduation - needs to be a major concern.

The Northeast Ohio Economic Brief from 2007 has some important findings:

• Between 2005 and 2006, nine sectors in NEO accelerated their job growth compared to the previous year. Important sectors that moved from a negative to a positive growth rate within this time period include Educational Services, Information, and Management of Companies and Enterprises.
• The three sectors that added the highest number of jobs were Health Care and Social Assistance (9,200 jobs), Administrative and Support Services (8,500), and Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (4,900).
• The fastest growing sectors in NEO with at least $4 billion in gross product were Transportation and Warehousing (16%), Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (10%), and Information (8%)
• Employment in NEO grew faster than the state but slower than the U.S. in the Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector, an important sector in a region seeking to transition to a technology based economy.

21st Century Skills

From the 21st Century Skills, Education & Competitiveness Resource and Policy Guide

Our ability to compete as a nation—and for states, regions and
communities to attract growth industries and create jobs—demands a
fresh approach to public education. We need to recognize that a 21st
century education is the bedrock of competitiveness—the engine, not
simply an input, of the economy.

And we need to act accordingly: Every aspect of our education
system—preK–12, postsecondary and adult education, after-school and youth development, workforce development and training, and teacher preparation programs—must be aligned to prepare citizens with the 21st century skills they need to compete.

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My take:
It is easy to find information about he importance of bringing technology and associated 21st century skills into K-12 classrooms. What is not as easy to find is information on best pratcices for revamping higher education curricula to integrate 21st century skills into core programs and particular areas of study. Yes, everyone should know how to use a computer in this day and age, but genuine 21st century skill competency is much more than that. Yes, STEM education needs to be increased because these disciplines will shape the future economic success of our nation and of our Northeast Ohio region, but STEM education does not and should not replace liberal arts, business, or other professional studies.

So where are the best practices for integrating 21st century skills into college classrooms, into education, liberal arts, business, philosophy and other degree programs?

Colgate's strategic plan for implementing 21st Century Skills is here