Advancing Innovation in Work and Learning | march 17, 2021
Can the pandemic induce higher education to jump-start the future of learning?
Scott Pulsipher, president of an all-online university founded in the internet age to broaden access to college, hopes so — and he calls this crisis a “shot in the arm” for technology-enabled higher education.
“Now more than ever, we have the opportunity to kind of rethink the entire student experience,” Pulsipher, president of Western Governors University, president of Western Governors University, said as a guest on Strada’s “Lessons Earned” podcast.
Now that higher ed leaders can envision how their campuses will function in a postpandemic world, the past year’s valuable lessons can help them build an education model for the future.
For colleges and universities hoping to put these learnings into action, Pulsipher offered advice based on Western Governors’ approach:
Place students at the center of the education experience.
Let go of the artificial construct of time that was inherent in past education models.
Measure outcomes, not inputs.
Believe in students’ innate capacity for learning.
Envision a future where online education works well. “Twenty-five years ago, a lot of online shopping wasn’t a particularly good experience,” Pulsipher said, “but look how far we’ve come.”
SOLUTIONS FOR RESKILLING. Fifteen teams were selected to move on to the next phase of the Future of Work Grand Challenge, the venture philanthropy organization New Profit and a coalition of partners announced. The project, with Strada and Walmart.org as lead funders, is focused on implementing solutions to rapidly reskill 25,000 American workers into higher-wage jobs and equip influential workforce boards with vetted tools to help get individuals back to work. The 15 solutions – 10 selected through the XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling competition and five through the MIT Solve Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the U.S. Challenge — address a wide range of systemic barriers to learning, progress, and socioeconomic mobility.
HOW 2020 CHANGED WORKER NEEDS
With support from Strada and Walmart.org, the Aspen Institute’s UpSkill America spent the last six months interviewing and surveying employers about how 2020 affected their businesses. For many companies, digital transformation has led to changes in how they think about the skills frontline workers need to be successful in their jobs and the investments in education and training programs needed to support workers’ development. At an upcoming webinar, Strada Senior Vice President for Philanthropy Daryl A. Graham joins UpSkill America and employer panelists to present the results from 3 to 4:30 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 24.
WAGES ON THE RISE
Companies are working hard to compete for workers, Emsi CEO Andrew Crapuchettes outlines in the latest episode of “Beer With Emsi.” The United States is experiencing wage inflation because even though the number of jobs decreased from September 2019 to September 2020, the number of workers decreased even more. The U.S. labor market has six million fewer workers than it did in February 2020, and employers must offer more to entice new hires. "That is supply and demand working in the market," Crapuchettes said.
Lessons Earned
In our podcast, we explore bold ideas to help Americans navigate between learning and earning throughout their lives.
