Character assessment: a middle-class ramp?

Character assessment: a middle-class ramp? by The Wing to Heaven My last two posts (here and here) have looked at how teacher assessments can be biased, and how tests can help to offset some of these biases. I’ve been quite sceptical of the possibility of improving teacher assessment so that it can become less biased: the more you try to reduce the bias in teacher assessment, the less it looks like teacher assessment.  Still, that’s not to say I am against all alternative forms of assessment. I think exams have many strengths, and are often unfairly maligned, but they have weaknesses too and we should always be looking to innovate to try and address such weaknesses. In this post and the next, I will look at two recent innovations in educational assessment: one which I think is hugely promising, and one which is less so. First, the less promising method. Assessing character Teaching character, or non-cognitive skills, is very popular at the moment, and for good reason. Children don’t just need academic skills to succeed in life; they need good character too. As E.D. Hirsch says here, character development has rightly been one of the major focuses of education from classical times. Whilst we can probably all agree on the importance of teaching character in some form, assessing it is far more fraught. Angela Duckworth, whose research focusses on ‘grit’, or perseverance for long-term goals, has created a very simple 12 and 8 item ‘grit scale’which ask you to answer a series of questions like this one: Setbacks don’t discourage me. a) Very much like me b) Mostly like me c) Somewhat like me d) Not much like me e) Not like me at all Duckworth et al discuss the development, validation and limitations of the grit scale here. It’s obviously a self-report scale, with all of the problems they entail, but despite this limitation it can tell us some useful information about how ‘gritty’ individuals are, and the impact this will have on their success in other areas. However, a self-report scale like this one is very obviously going to be of much less use in any more sophisticated or high-stakes assessments.  For example, if you wanted to measure the success of a particular ‘character’ intervention, this scale is not going to allow you to measure whether a cohort’s grit has increased over time. Similarly, if anyone wanted to use a measure of grit or character for accountability purposes, the grit scale is not going to be able to do that either. As the teaching of character has become more popular, more people clearly want a grit scale that is capable of carrying out these kinds of functions. As a result, Duckworth has actually written a paper here outlining in detail why the grit scale is not capable of these kinds of functions, and why it shouldn’t be used like this. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should stop teaching character. And nor does it mean we have no way of measuring how effective our character education is. As Dan Willingham says here, we could always use measures of academic achievement to see how effective our character education is. The disadvantage is that of course other things will impact on academic achievement, not just the character education, but the advantage is that we are actually measuring one of the things we care about: 'Indeed, there would not be much point in crowing about my ability to improve my psychometrically sound measure of resilience if such improvement meant nothing to education.' However, whilst we shouldn't stop teaching character, I think Duckworth's paper and the problems surrounding the measurement of character mean we do have to be careful about how we assess it. To return to the theme of my previous posts, we know that teacher assessment is biased against pupils with poor behaviour, with SEN, from low-income backgrounds, and from ethnic minorities. There is every risk that subjective assessments of character might suffer from the same flaws.  In fact, I would argue that there is more of a risk. School-level maths is a fairly well-defined concept, and yet teacher assessments of it are biased. I don't think 'character' or 'grit' are nearly as well-defined as school maths, so the risk of bias is even greater. Whilst Duckworth's work on 'grit' is clearly defined, in general the recent interest in character education has served to expand the concept rather than define it more precisely. I am often struck by the number of different meanings 'character' seems to have, and how often people seem to use the term to mean 'personal qualities that I have and/or approve of'. Given this, there is a real risk that subjective assessments of character would inadvertently tend to reinforce stereotypes about social classes, gender and ethnic groups, and end up disadvantaging pupils who are already disadvantaged. Not only that, but if we loaded high-stakes outcomes onto character assessments - for example, giving assessments of character weight in university admissions - then there would be an incentive to game such assessments and again, it is not too far a stretch to think that it would be middle-class parents who would be adept at gaming such assessments for their children, and that students from less privileged backgrounds might be disadvantaged by such assessments. To put it bluntly, I'd worry that character assessments would become a middle-class ramp, a way for underachieving middle-class children to use their nice manners to compensate for their poor grades. Character assessments need a lot of improvement before they can be relied on in the same way as traditional academic exams.

The 4 models of blended learning in action

New report explores main blended models and their use

A new paper by advocacy and policy org iNacol explores how blended learning is being used in practice and traces its history from 2008 to today. In particular, it takes a close look at the four major blended models and, through case studies, how specific schools have fared in implementing them.

According to iNacol, the paper also delves into the evolution of blended learning, the use of digital content and curricula, and the engagement of students toward higher levels of academic success. The case studies profiled illustrate a variety of blended learning implementations, providing insights for increasing program effectiveness.

Drawing from research from Clayton Christensen, the report outlines four blended learning models: rotation, Flex, A La Carte, and/or Enriched Virtual.

Rotation is defined as, “Any course or subject in which students rotate—either on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion—among learning modalities, at least one of which is online learning.” The teacher, or the clock, determines when students move from one activity or modality to the next. Students might rotate in the same physical classroom space, move to a computer lab, or independently switch activities based on personal learning goals. Flipped learning might also be used to help students rotate.
In action: New York’s Randolph Central School District, where students in grades K–6 are placed in “fluid ability groups” relative to grade level, and rotate between online learning, small-group print materials, and teacher-led instruction for math and ELA instruction.

Flex models make use of a brick and mortar campus but most of students’ time is spent in an online environment, although a teacher is present on-site. Some programs, the report notes, make ample use of face-to-face time, such as facilitating group discussions away from computer screens, while others take a more hands-off approach.
In action: Innovations Early College High School, in Salt Lake City, which lets students help create their own learning plan by setting career goals and choosing online or face-to-face courses offered by other high schools or a local community college. For Innovations offered courses, students work through district-developed curricula with on-site teachers who provide individual and small-group instruction, and facilitate group projects. Students are even free to arrive and leave at their leisure between 7 am and 5 pm.

A La Carte, as a model, is exactly what it sounds like: students take a typical class load at their campus but supplement with personally-selected online courses, much like choosing platters off an a la carte menu. The report notes that it does not even have to be a whole school experience.
In action: Washington’s Spokane Public Schools, a district with two blended programs in place: one, a credit recovery program called ICAN, features special on-site classrooms at various campuses where students work through online courses with an instructor present; On Track Academy also serves at-risk students but with the purpose of moving them toward a technical or two- or four-year college degree. Students there have access to various skill centers staffed by qualified teachers who are on hand to work with students toward their set goals.

Enriched Virtual refers to models where students spend some time in a face-to-face environment but then are responsible for completing their work individually, either on-site or at home. “Many Enriched Virtual programs began as full-time online schools,” according to the report, “and then developed blended programs to provide students with brick-and-mortar school experiences.”
In action: Commonwealth Connections Academy, a Pennsylvania virtual public charter, uses drop-in centers to allow its virtual — and often at-risk — students to receive face-to-face instruction while they move through online courses. Workshops in STEM and humanities fields are also offered at the drop-in sites.

For more information about the case studies, read the full report online.

Why is teacher assessment biased?

Why is teacher assessment biased? by The Wing to Heaven In my last post, I spoke about how disadvantaged pupils do better on tests than on teacher assessments – and also about how many people assume the opposite is the case. It’s interesting that today, we seem to think that teacher assessment will help the disadvantaged. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the meritocratic advantages of tests were better understood than they are today, as were the nepotism and prejudice that often resulted from other types of assessment. In the 19th century, the civil service reformers Charles Northcote and Stafford Trevelyan fought a long battle to make entry to the civil service based on test scores, rather than family connections. In the early 20th century, Labour educationalists such as RH Tawney and Beatrice and Sidney Webb fought for an education system based around exams, because they believed that only exams could ensure that underprivileged children were treated fairly. Since then, we have only gathered more evidence about the equalizing power of exams, but oddly, we seem to have forgotten these insights. In my last post, I explained why it is that tests are fairer – they treat every pupil the same, and every pupil has to answer the same questions. However, whilst I gave plenty of evidence that teacher assessment was biased, I didn’t fully explain why this bias happens. As a result, quite a few people said that the solution was simply ‘better teacher assessment’, perhaps by introducing more moderation and CPD, as a group of teaching unions recommended doing in 2011. How realistic is that? Are the problems with teacher assessment really so insoluble that we have to resort to tests? And what exactly are the nature of these flaws? Teacher assessment is biased not because it is carried out by teachers, but because it is carried out by humans. Tammy Campbell, the IoE researcher whose recent research showed bias in teacher assessments of 7-year-olds, is at pains to point this out. She says, 'I want to stress that this isn’t something unique to teachers. It’s human nature. Humans use stereotypes as a cognitive shortcut and we’re all prone to it.'  A growing body of research reinforces Campbell's point. We all have difficulties making certain complex judgments and decisions, and we resort to shortcuts when the mental strain becomes too great (see Daniel Kahneman's work for more on this). Indeed, it is plausible to speculate that the reason why teacher assessment is biased is because it is so burdensome: when we are faced with difficult cognitive challenges we often default to stereotypes. And teacher assessment really is burdensome. I thought I had it bad as a secondary teacher marking coursework for GCSE pupils, but I recently spoke to a primary colleague who told me about the hours they spend gathering evidence for KS1 assessments and cross-referencing it against the level descriptors – a task which, as I’ve said before, is at the limits of human cognitive capacity. When faced with such a difficult challenge, defaulting to stereotypes is in many ways a sensible attempt by our unconscious minds to reduce our workload. We know that on average pupils on free school meals do not attain as well, we know that the essay we are marking isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible, we know it sort of meets some of the criteria on the mark scheme, we need some more evidence in order to reach a final judgment, we could reread the essay and mark scheme but the mark scheme is hard to interpret…we also know that the pupil who wrote the essay is from the wrong side of the tracks. Done: it’s a below average essay. None of us want to admit that this is how our minds work, and for most of us, our minds don’t consciously work like this, but there is plenty of evidence that this is how our reasoning goes. That’s the nice story: here, Adrian Wooldridge gives the less charitable interpretation of the mental processes of assessors. He says that when you base assessment around ‘Oxford dons who pronounce mystically on whether a candidate possesses "a trace of alpha”’, don’t then be surprised when ‘a large number of those who show up favorably on the alpha detectors turn out to be Old Etonians.’ Is it possible to counter such bias in any way? Is it possible to ‘do better teacher assessment’? After all, whilst we humans are susceptible to bias, we are also self-aware. We know we make these errors, and in most of the fields where we make these errors, we have found ways around them. I once heard the scientific method described as a collection of practices designed to counteract human bias. Are there practices we can introduce to teacher assessment that would function like this, and counteract human bias? Yes, there are. We could anonymize the work that’s being marked. We could standardize tasks, conditions and marking protocols. We could carry out some statistical analysis of the marks different pupils get and that different teachers give. And once we had done all that, we would find that we had eliminated many of the biases associated with teacher assessment, but that we had also pretty much eliminated the teacher assessment and replaced it with a test. The flaws with teacher assessment are inherent in its very nature. Doing teacher assessment better basically means making it more test-like. The whole point of the test is that it, like the practices that characterize the scientific method, is essentially a method for countering human bias. As the Bew report says here, most of the attempts to reduce the bias of teacher assessment have failed, and those that have succeeded do so by making teacher assessment more test-like. Teacher assessment discriminates against poorer pupils and minorities, and generates significant workload for teachers. Tests are fairer and less burdensome. They deserve a better reputation than they have, and a greater role in our assessment system. Whilst I'm in favour of tests, and sceptical about the possibility of improving teacher assessment, I still think there are other ways we could improve assessment. In my next few posts I will look at some recent assessment innovations and see if they offer any improvements on the status quo. The Wing to Heaven | November 1, 2015 at 1:39 pm | Categories: Assessment | URL:http://wp.me/p24WgD-hc

The seven elements of digital literacies

The Department for Education has finally set out what it means by ‘coasting’.

Date: 02nd July 2015
Author: Pete Henshaw
Theme: Education Policy, Exams and Assessment, Leadership
Tags: Academies, Coasting Schools, Education and Adoption Bill 2015,School improvement

The Department for Education has finally set out what it means by ‘coasting’. However, a lack of detail means school leaders are still in the dark about what they will need to achieve to avoid intervention. Pete Henshaw reports

Secondary schools have at last been given a definition of what “coasting” will mean under the government’s new intervention proposals.

However, the definition issued by education secretary Nicky Morgan on Tuesday (June 30) is still not complete and will leave school leaders unsure as to what they need to achieve come 2016 – the first year when “coasting” schools will be named – to avoid intervention.

School leaders have said the policy is “muddled” and “arbitrary”, while teachers have pointed out that many schools judged “good” by Ofsted could soon be at risk of losing their headteachers and top staff.

The Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed that academisation is to be the ultimate sanction for “coasting” schools that fail to improve results. Ministers believe that hundreds of schools will fall into the new category come 2016.

However, the announcement this week came as a new research report revealed “no significant link” between academy status and improved pupil progress. Critics have also said that many academy schools will also be considered “coasting” under the new measure.

The coasting measure

The DfE has said that the “coasting” measure, which is to be introduced via the Education and Adoption Bill currently passing through Parliament, will be defined over rolling three-year periods, the first of which will run from 2014 to 2016.

In 2014 and 2015, a school will be “coasting” if fewer than 60 per cent of children achieve five A* to C GCSEs including English and mathematics and they are “below the median level of expected progress”.

In 2016, they will be coasting if they fall below “a level set against the new Progress 8 measure”. However, the DfE has said that this level will not be set until after the 2016 results are out in order “to ensure it is set at a suitable level”. A statement said: “A school will have to be below those levels in all three years to be defined as ‘coasting’.”

Ms Morgan said: “I want the message to go out loud and clear, that education isn’t simply about pushing children over an artificial borderline, but instead about stretching every pupil to unlock their potential and give them the opportunity to get on in life. I know that schools and teachers will rise to the challenge, and the extra support we’ll offer to coasting schools will help them do just that.”

However, it means that schools will not know what they have to achieve in 2016 in order to avoid being labelled as “coasting”. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) warned that a school could “find itself in the position of having met every target set for it at the time and then discovering after the fact that this wasn’t enough”.

After 2014-2016, the judgement will be based on a rolling three-year period, meaning that by 2018 the definition of “coasting” will be based entirely on the Progress 8 measure and will not have an attainment element.

The DfE statement adds: “The ‘coasting’ definition will capture performance in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Therefore we will not know until 2016 how many schools will be captured within the definition. However, based on current performance we expect the definition to apply to hundreds of schools.”

Ms Morgan said that identified “coasting” schools will be offered help from “the best education experts in the country” to improve results. Schools will be expected to produce a “clear plan for improvement”.

The eight regional school commissioners, supported by elected headteacher boards from their local communities, will assess whether a school’s plan is “credible”.

The DfE added: “Those that can improve will be supported to do so by our team of expert heads, and those that cannot will be turned into academiesunder the leadership of our expert school sponsors.”

Reaction from the profession

“Muddled”, “unfair”, “arbitrary” – the reaction from teachers and school leaders to the announcement this week has been largely critical.

The Association of School and College Leaders pointed out that consultation about the definition has not even been completed. General secretary Brian Lightman added: “The criteria it sets out for what constitutes a coasting school is muddled.

“If the government wishes to introduce such a measure it should surely be entirely on the progress that pupils make, rather than attainment. Otherwise, its policy will focus most attention on schools that are in challenging circumstances, rather than being a measure that assesses progress in all schools, including those with high-attaining intakes.

“And where does the figure of 60 per cent come from, given that the floor target is 40 per cent? It seems arbitrary.”

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, pointed out that schools have been waiting 45 days for this information.

She continued: “Very many good secondary and primary schools – as defined by Ofsted, and as defined by parents – will now be classified as coasting. They will now stand the risk of losing their heads and other staff as uncertainty reigns in their school.

“Schools are already under enormous pressure to placate the whims of government and Ofsted. This arbitrary target will only serve to sharpen teaching to the test and a concentration on borderline students. This already results in a narrowed curriculum and, for many pupils, disengagement.”

The NAHT said the delay in defining “coasting” had caused “unnecessary fear”. General secretary Russell Hobby added: “The measure is retrospective, applying as it does over 2014 and 2015 as well as 2016. A school could find itself in the position of having met every target set for it at the time and then discovering after the fact that this wasn’t enough. This is not a good way to encourage people to take on the leadership of challenging schools – an issue the government is struggling with.

“There have also been so many changes to examinations and tests that we don’t know how results will be calculated or adjusted in future years – schools will be navigating blind in this territory.”

There has been welcome for the fact that forced academy conversion is not to be the default option for “coasting” schools – however, school leaders are calling for more clarity about the process that will be involved.

Mr Hobby continued: “Forced academisation is only on the cards after all other options for improvement have been exhausted. Our concern is how this process will work. Will it be open and transparent, with clear notification and a real opportunity for the school to make its case? This is essential if the measures for coasting schools are to be seen as supportive rather than punitive.”

The academy question

Critics of the plans have pointed out that many academy schools will also be defined as “coasting” under the measure, raising questions over the DfE’s strategy of academisation.

Furthermore, a report from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has this week raised questions about the effectiveness of academiesover non-academy schools when it comes to pupil progress.

The study, based on 2014’s GCSE results, shows “no significant difference in overall school performance between academies and similar maintained schools”.

The research, commissioned by the Local Government Association, compared sponsored and converter academies that have been open for between two and four years and a group of maintained schools that had similar characteristics at the time the schools became academies.

While the report finds a statistically significant difference in favour of sponsoredacademies when it comes to the percentage of pupils who achieved five or more A* to C grades, it warns that “attainment progress made by pupils in sponsored and converter academies is not greater than in similar maintained schools”.

It adds: “There was very little evidence of pupils of different types, such as pupils eligible for free school meals, or pupils with high or low prior ability, making relatively more progress in academy schools compared to similar maintained schools.”

The profession is also concerned. Mr Lightman said: “We are pleased to see that there is an emphasis on supporting schools which are deemed to be coasting. However, it seems the eventual outcome will be to turn many of them into academies as though this is a solution in itself.

“As we have said previously, academisation is not a magic wand. Schools in challenging circumstances require individual support that takes account of their specific situation. For instance, academisation is not a solution to a severe supply shortage of high-quality teachers in key subjects like maths, science and English.”

Ms Blower added: “Nicky Morgan says that coasting schools will ultimately be transformed into academies, but by her own definition very many academy schools will also be coasting.

“The education secretary continues to leave unaddressed the central questions facing education – the growing shortage of teachers and headteachers, the crisis in the supply of school places and the developing school funding problems.”

Further information

• The Education and Adoption Bill 2015:http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/educationandadoption.html
• Analysis of academy school performance in GCSEs 2014: Final report, NFER (July 2015): www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/LGGA03
• Details of the Progress 8 measure: www.gov.uk/government/publications/progress-8-school-performance-measure

Schools must consider double shifting to accomodate growing pupil numbers (Guardian)

 The school places crisis needs to be addressed urgently. Introducing teaching shifts could be the answer. Photograph: Alamy

Roy Blatchford

Director of the National Education Trust

The latest Department for Education data confirms what headteachers and local authority leaders have been saying for the past few years: we need to re-think how we provide school places.

The growth in immigrants, combined with the baby boom, is putting unprecedented pressure on the school system across the country. There was a1.3% increase in student numbers (pdf) in state and independent schools in England between January 2014 and 2015. This growth has been most keenly felt in state primary schools, where there has been a 2.1% increase (pdf) in numbers – equivalent to almost 94,000 more children – in the past year.

This has led to super-sized schools, as highlighted in the BBC profile on Gascoigne primary in Barking , the largest primary school in England where the pupil roll totals 1,200. Today, there are 87 primary schools with more than 800 students, compared with 77 in 2014 and 58 in 2013.

The government has committed to opening 500 new free schools over the next five years to ease pressure. This will go some way to housing the rising number of four-year-olds as we nudge to a UK population of 77 million by 2050, but it won’t go far enough. We will also need to fundamentally re-think the school day and teachers’ working patterns.

The orthodoxy of all primary pupils starting school at 9am and finishing at 3.30pm has to be challenged. In the same way that early years settings offer morning and afternoon places, many urban primaries will need to think along similar lines for all their students. This form of double-shifting is common in other countries, and will soon become the norm in England’s major cities.

Take the Indian high school in Dubai, with its enrolment of 12,000 students and fleet of 81 air-conditioned buses to transport pupils and staff. Different grades and ages operate different shifts across a 7.30am to 6.50pm timeframe. In recent years, I have seen similar arrangements in Egypt, India and the US, sometimes for religious reasons (with girls and boys attending the same school but at different times of the day), sometimes because of a shortage of school buildings, sometimes as a result of bold and creative educational thinking.

In the UK, a number of state and independent schools have consciously changed working hours for older students to reflect when they are most awake. AtHampton Court House in Surrey, for example, sixth form lessons start at 1.30pm and finish at 7pm. The later start time helps their teenage brains and the condensed day affords students more independence over how they structure their time, opening up a huge range of work experience and community service opportunities, off-peak gym times and sports coaching.

Local authorities and academy providers should start planning now for how the school population can be provided for, using time in school more efficiently. Terms could be lengthened as required; four- to eight year-olds could attend school from 7.30am to 12.30pm and nine- to 11-year-olds from 1.30pm to 6:30pm. In secondaries, lessons for 11- to 14-year-olds could run from 7.30am through 12.30pm, and from 1.30pm to 6.30pm for older students. Or, as in Californian high schools, students sign up for different “tracks”, depending on which nine months of the year they choose to be in school.

The teachers’ unions will huff and puff; teachers’ contracts will need reshaping, but thousands more teachers are needed anyway over the next decade and this will provide even more employment opportunities. Students, parents, governors and the wider community will need to be educated about the new realities of shift schools; childcare provision in particular will need to be reconsidered as working families wouldn’t be able to rely on schools looking after their children during working hours.

Crucially, from my observations internationally, school buildings and resources will need skilful husbandry. Within the next few years many primary and secondary schools in urban areas will be opening their doors 24/7, for formal schooling and a wide variety of adult and community learning. The precious resource which is the local school will not stand idle for many weeks of the year as it does currently.

In times of financial constraint and a significantly increasing student population, for politicians and school providers alike, what are the alternatives?

Is Gen Z #Unemployable?

College and university focus on picking a major may be more of a hindrance than a benefit to today’s graduating students, say business leaders.

The students of Generation Z are a confident group that almost always believe they are ready to take the next step or take on the next task, no matter how prepared they actually are. Whether it’s taking a final exam after one night’s worth of cramming or earning a promotion in their first year, today’s youth truly believe they can get the job done. Gen Z’s confidence about their capability to successfully perform in the workplace upon graduation even trickles down to their educators, as 96 percent of chief academic officersbelieve their graduates are ready for the workforce.

However, public view of this generation’s preparedness to contribute upon entering the workplace is shockingly different. In fact, only 11 percent of American business leaders agree that students are graduating with the necessary skills and competencies to succeed in the workplace.

So where do business leaders believe colleges and universities are falling short in graduating employable students?

According to business leaders, institutions put too much focus on “picking a major.” Getting a college degree today has been compared to the high school diploma Generation X received, but it is now about much more than the degree or major chosen. Over 90 percent of employers agree that for career success “a candidate’s demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly and solve complex problems is more important than his or her undergraduate major.”

Additionally, 97 percent of C-Suite executives believe higher education programs should expand opportunities for experiential learning and entrepreneurship (89 percent). With entrepreneurial rates well above the dot com bubble 15 years ago and 61 percent of today’s high school studentsdreaming of being their own employers, the entrepreneurial spirit has reemerged with Gen Z. Given their access to an unlimited supply of information, resources and mentors via the Internet, it’s easy to see why today’s high school students are eager to create their own careers.

To encourage the future success of entrepreneurs and supply American businesses with a more “skilled up” workforce that can hit the ground running upon hiring, the educational landscape needs to be revitalized. Here are three ways educators can adapt teaching models to meet the learning needs/behaviors of this entrepreneurial-minded generation to better prepare them for the workforce or launching their own business.

More doing, less talking

Better preparation for actual on-the-job work starts with exposing students to “more doing” in the classroom to fully master concepts being taught. The rise of a competency-based education, a model that gives students credit for direct demonstrations of learning rather than hours in a classroom, has been slow. But as employers become less concerned with the majors of their potential employees, colleges and universities must steer educational programs toward more skill-based learning.

Competency-based learning forces students and educators to focus on performing actual tasks instead of listening to a lecture and demonstrating their understanding via test-taking. Moreover, a competency-based educational program allows students more time for internships because they don’t have the same mandatory class hours as standard programs. Additional time spent working in internships instead of classrooms will better prepare students to make the immediate impact post-graduation that companies expect from their top candidates.

Flip learning with flex classes

To create a more skill-based class, educators can flip the learning experience. This means, less lecturing and allowing students to use in-class time to practice what they’ve learned.

Currently, over 85 percent of people believe that students must be able to complete a significant applied learning project to succeed in the workplace but only 14 percent of employers believe today’s students possess the knowledge or skills to do so. The flipped classroom encourages students to not only use technology to work and acquire skills, but also apply those skills continuously – much like professionals are expected to do during training.

When flipping the classroom it’s important for educators to incorporate flex classes, a learning style that offers “flex-attendance“ options to join classes “in-person” or “online” throughout the duration of a course. The implementation of a flexible, flipped classroom allows students to learn educational concepts on their own time and at their own pace, while using in-person class time to practice what they’ve learned on a regular basis and better prepare them to apply these practiced skills to a job.

Not only does flipping and flexing the classroom support skills-based learning, it can also improve overall student outcomes as 71 percent of teachers who have flipped the classroom reporting significant improvement in student grades. This model puts the pressure on students to take responsibility for their learning outcomes and establish time management techniques that will keep them on pace with the curriculum and their peers. Putting the onus on students to decide when to work and what to work on provides them with opportunity to work like professionals and develop habits that will translate to the workplace post-graduation.

Encourage social connectivity

While students need more practice learning the “hard skills” to perform the job, they also need to master softer skills, like effective communication and collaboration. And educators should take serious note: a mere 28 percent of employers believe that recent graduates have the communication skills to succeed in the workplace.

To address this gap early on, educators should make learning more social to play into this generation’s digitally-native urge to stay connected and communicate through mobile devices. Specifically, incorporating a mobile component, like live face-to-face video, text chatting, online polling and more, into the classroom will give students access to learning resources and the ability to collaborate with their classmates anywhere, anytime. Students will learn to take in new material while simultaneously collaborating with their peers through the use of technology, which are valuable skills that are necessary to succeed in today’s workplace.

While the skills needed to succeed in today’s workplace continue to evolve, the higher education landscape has remained relatively stagnant in its efforts to create learning models that support job-readiness. Just as there is no one-size-fits-all approach to learning, there are many ways to educate students with more on-the-job skills and experience before they enter the workforce. By using some of these approaches to adapt learning models, educators have a head start on better preparing our future workforce.