Online learning and the 21st century workplace

I get asked how Charter Oak State College is preparing students for the workforce at every meeting I attend, and my answer is one I enjoy giving time and time again.  I shared it at a meeting in Washington, DC last week, and one of the college presidents attending told me he was going to include it in his blog.  So I decided that I had better get my idea into print before I needed to cite someone else.

All kidding aside, the question of how higher education is preparing students for the 21st century workforce is a critical question for our industry. It is being asked with increased urgency because so many students are borrowing larger and larger sums of money to pursue their college education. So it should be no surprise that the questions about whether these loans are justified by the learning are getting louder.

My answer is this. When I look at the classroom experience of our online students, what I see is a perfect example of the 21st century workplace. Like the workplace, our online courses are distributed in time and space, are technology-driven, collaborative, and short term. In effect, the strategies and behaviors of an online class mirror the strategies and behaviors of the 21st century workplace. Let me explain.

Our online courses emphasize communication between the instructor and students.  This communication is executed through email, threaded discussions, and various types of digital presentations. The course activity occurs within the framework of a Learning Management System—Blackboard’s Learn, in our case. 

This technology is necessary because while students take the course as a cohort, they do their “work” on their own schedule.  For example, each set of assignments is due during a given week, but there is no specific time when the whole class meets.  This is called asynchronous learning.

That same Learning Management System makes student collaboration easier. Our courses use very few high stakes objective tests and a large number of collaborative (team) projects.  Students must produce work, share that work with their instructor and classmates, react to suggestions and offer them to others, play a specific role in the team’s project, and then deliver a final product by a due date.
 

And finally, since the vast majority of our students are working adults going to school part-time, these courses are just part of the work they do every day.

What I have just described is what an average work day is like for most people employed in this 21^st century economy.  Employees often team up with colleagues who may not physically work in the same office, or even the same state or country. They collaborate constantly, and use a variety of communication technologies to support those collaborations. They may also be members of a variety of teams, none of which is their only job.

Charter Oak State College's students are being prepared for the 21st century workplace because their academic activities occur in the same online space, using the same tools, and arranged in the same collaborative teams as that workplace.

Would you agree? If you are a former or current online student, does this idea resonate with you? Please share your thoughts in comments. I would love to hear them.

Thoughts on 2012 and beyond

Let me begin by wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year.  I am taking advantage of some quiet time to share my thoughts about 2012 with you.  As President, it is part of my job to keep an eye out for trends that will affect the College in both positive and negative ways, and adjust our course to address those trends. The break between Christmas and New Year is a good time for such contemplation.

We are always striving to increase the number of areas of study we offer our students, and continually focus on building programs in sectors of the job market that are growing.  Health care is one such area and, after performing a careful scan of potential online programs, we chose Health Information Management (HIM) as the program in which we would invest. I am happy to report that this decision has been met with great enthusiasm in the health care industry.

The development of our HIM degree is moving quickly.  We have identified and contracted with a subject matter expert who has developed the curriculum and program learning outcomes for the degree.  These will be in alignment with the Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) Examination and licensure that graduates of the program will achieve.  We have identified qualified faculty from across the country to begin working with our Instructional Design team to build the 12 specialized courses that this program will require.  Our Provost and Dean are preparing the documentation we must present to our Board of Regents and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges to gain approval for our new program.  And we have set the second term of fall 2012 (October) as our planned launch date.  So this important new program is moving forward according to schedule.

But I am continually wondering what to expect from the larger landscape.  Will the economy improve?  Will our adult students continue to see our offerings as important to upgrading their workplace skill sets?  How will we all respond to the economic challenges facing our country? 

Here is what I think.  In Connecticut, we have a Governor who is aggressively addressing the state’s economic challenges.  Working with our General Assembly and the state’s workforce, he has produced a balanced budget through a combination of new taxes, spending cuts, and union givebacks.  None of this has been easy, but he has persisted.  His plans included re-organizing our sector of higher education into a Board of Regents, and that entity is beginning its work.  So at the state level, we are working hard to put our economic house in order.

And I see similar efforts, all a little different in terms of their emphasis on cuts, revenues, and pension adjustments, in the surrounding states.  In effect, throughout our country, we have 50 laboratories experimenting with approaches to doing more with less.  Unfortunately, on the national front, our Congress has not yet begun its work.  It is my hope, as the various states begin to see positive results from their hard work, our federal representatives will adopt approaches that mirror the best thinking from those efforts.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments section of this post. How has the economy affected your life? What are your thoughts on the responsiveness of state and federal government to the economic downturn?  Please let me know what you think.

I will keep you posted as the year progresses, and I wish all the best to you and yours from the team at Charter Oak.