A GPS for Learning and Work

The third section of my most recent book, Free-Range Learning in the Digital Age: The Emerging Revolution in College, Career and Education, was entitled “The Emerging GPS for Learning and Work.”

In it, I described a learning/employment process that paralleled, metaphorically, the GPS in your car. We are leaving the time when a college student could select a major and realistically expect that when she completed her work, there would be a job for life waiting. Given that reality, how then are we supposed to effectively serve that person as well as the older returning learners who now constitute a majority of all students?

There is a lot of talk these days about new ecosystems, pathways and the changing face of opportunity and need in the education, training and employment space. And, keeping in mind the “60-year curriculum” with its attendant complexities described in the last blog post, it is clear that we need a collection of services, whatever we call them, that are personalized, comprehensive and long-lived, responding to learners’ needs over time.

Personalization does not mean that there is a different solution for every person. It does mean that every person will know what they need to learn to reach their employment goal, why it is important and what the payoff will be when they get there. And, like the GPS in your car, the information gleaned from this personalization will include alternative pathways, similar but slightly different occupational paths, and “hidden” job requirements like emotional intelligence, critical thinking and teamwork.

To further complicate matters, an aging workforce that will be working longer and in multiple jobs will use this cycle of gap analysis, path selection, learning and work again and again, throughout their lives. Personalization will include characteristics, including:

• Assessment and recognition of prior learning, wherever it was done;
• Application of that knowledge to both academic and employment standards and requirements;
• An algorithmic database that will identify your current level of knowledge, skills and abilities; compare that to the requirements of the job you want to qualify for; suggest alternatives and, in every case, tell you what you need to learn and where you can get that learning; and
• Storage of all your learning in an easily accessible portfolio.

This is not an exhaustive list. It does suggest, however, the magnitude and multiple dimensions of change and development that lie ahead as we prepare for the 60-year curriculum. I envision an educational ecosystem that is as accessible and effective as the shopping experience offered today by Amazon and others.

The big ideas that will come in successive weeks illustrate some of the early-stage thinking that is occurring.