- Higher education is
not keeping up with the changing realities of our modern world. - This is Don Fraser, and he's on a mission to
redesign higher ed so it works better
for today's students. - There's no lack of jobs, and there's no lack
of job seekers, but many college graduates
find themselves underemployed
or unemployed. They graduate from
college with a degree in hand and
their fingers crossed. The problem is that employers and job
seekers are using outdated modes to
find one another. Many of us use GPS in our daily lives to navigate
from point A to B. It gives me choices. It shows me how to take
the fastest route. It's going to reroute me if I encounter an accident; it shows me the route
that avoids tolls. Why can't we do this
within education? In this case, the path
from school to work. There is a new innovation
in higher ed: Colleges have started to
work with employers to focus on ‘micro-credentials.’ These are more focused
demonstrations of skills. Don thinks this innovation
could be the key to unlocking better, more fulfilling jobs
for millions of people. What if there were
a better path, one that is cheaper,
faster, more nimble? Let me show you how. - The work that we do at
Education Design Lab is really focused on
changing the status quo. For Don, this means
bringing students, colleges, and employers
to the table to develop a new, innovative
way to navigate higher ed. They call it a ‘micro-pathway,’
and it's catching on. So far, Education Design
Lab has partnered with over 50 community
college systems to launch these programs
across the country. But before we get into
how it works, why now? - Higher education is broken. It's not preparing people
to be workers in today's economy. The problem is
employers are looking at college graduates and they're often saying,
“They don't have the skills that I'm
looking for.” Let's just say I got
a bachelor's degree in computer science– that, in years past,
may have helped me get a particular job. But employers are looking
at those saying, “Okay, but can I
put you on a team? Do you have
collaboration skills? Can I put you in front
of a customer? Do you have the necessary
oral communication skills?” So when we think about the types of skills
people are looking for, they are both technical,
but they are also these human, 21st-century skills. So you can say
that the degree in that case isn’t
precise enough. It's almost like a butter knife when you need something
more like an X-Acto knife. Higher education is
unpacking that degree and creating smaller
units of learning that are directly aligned to the skills an employer needs. But how does this
actually work? Micro-credentials can
be something that you can acquire
in a matter of weeks and you earn a digital badge–
and this allows an employer to click on a link
and see the data, the learning beneath it. And that helps me understand
what you actually did to earn it, and what skills you have
as a result of that learning. What about if an employer saw that I had earned a
micro-credential in collaboration– that I know how to use
that skill in the workplace? That's going to be a game-changer. - Which brings us back to that
idea of a micro-pathway. - Imagine stacking these
micro-credentials on a path that makes it crystal-clear how
to go from point A to point B. Now, I can see that if I start here, I might spend four months
to get to this next point. And now I can actually
see that point gets me that job,
earning this much. Micro-pathway is
like GPS designed by the people who know
the terrain best. The world is changing fast. And the way we learn
needs to keep up. A growing number of employers
don't necessarily care where you got your degree. They just want to make sure that
you have the skills to do the job. - But experts like Don will
say that this movement is about so much more
than building a better way to acquire skills: It's about helping people find
fulfilling work that matches their unique gifts and
empowers them to make a meaningful contribution. - We want to make sure
that all learners are able to achieve their goals in such
a dynamic environment. This is a huge opportunity to
unlock the jobs of the future; to fill the gaps that exist now
between our workforce and what the future of our
workforce actually needs. Learners, educators, employers– they all have a stake
in co-designing and building a solution that builds confidence,
it builds agency. And at the end of the day,
you're building something that people
actually want. If we bring the people who are closest to the problem
into the conversation, we have a real shot at
making this world a better place for everyone.
